When we launched i’s Save Britain’s Rivers campaign last year, it was hard to guess whether you’d find more sh*t in the country’s polluted rivers – or coming out of the mouths of politicians.
Plenty claim they will take decisive action. Yet today we can see the gap between promise and reality.
Sewage spills are at a record high, as water companies illegally dump waste. But the watchdog is conducting its fewest tests for 12 years.
Could these two facts possibly be related?
The last government made deep cuts at England’s Environment Agency. Water firms have a polluter’s charter, after the rules were changed to allow them to report their own sewage spillages. Cosy.
The Environment Agency has also shown weak leadership, protesting that it needs “incidents reported to us” in order to crack down.
The state of our rivers is a national scandal. i readers are distributed pretty evenly across the UK, and you offer a snapshot of public anger.
Many of our waterways are little better than open sewers. Britain’s wild places are being damaged, habitats destroyed. People and nature are suffering – and the problem is getting worse.
So far, the measures announced by Labour will not be sufficient.
In 11 days, when Rachel Reeves stands up to deliver her first Budget, will the Government show it is serious about stopping these crimes?
