Charity threatens Government with legal challenge over sewage plan

Conservation charity WildFish has sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Government, asking for the Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan, issued on Friday 26 August, to be withdrawn on the basis that it is unlawful.

Wildfish, established in 2008, is a charity committed to the conservation of freshwater fish species and their habitats. Their work seeks to diminish threats such as open-net salmon farming, pollution, and over-abstraction.

Their key ground for legal action is that the Government’s plan encourages the continuation of breaches of existing environmental laws. The charity’s lawyers have concluded that DEFRA’s Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan is “unlawful on many counts.”

Nick Measham, CEO of WildFish, said: “The Plan’s central ‘headline target’ is, in effect, a plan to allow up to 100% of storm overflows that are currently discharging in or close to ‘high priority sites’ to continue to cause adverse ecological impact to those sites for the next 13 years to 2035, and to allow up to 25% of those same storm overflows to continue to cause adverse ecological impact for a further 10 years to 2045. The Plan will also allow up to 100% of storm overflows discharging anywhere else to continue to cause adverse ecological impact for the next 28 years to 2050. 

“In short, the Plan envisages, allows or otherwise encourages the continuation of breaches of existing environmental laws by the water companies, by OFWAT and by the Secretary of State himself, for many years to come, in some cases until 2050. 

“The Plan is, in fact, a classic ‘smoke and mirrors’ exercise by a Government that has no real appetite to deal robustly with the appalling sewage pollution of English rivers caused by water companies.

“We have asked the Government to withdraw this Plan. We will see in due course how DEFRA responds.”

DEFRA has been approached for comment.

Lottie Winson