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River Basin Management plans face legal challenge
Not ‘good’ enough: only 27% of rivers in England and Wales make the grade
The WWF and the Angling Trust have launched a legal challenge to the government's plans to improve river quality across the UK, claiming they do not go far enough.
The two groups said the River Basin Management Plans submitted to the European Commission in December to comply with the Water Framework Directive "don't set high enough targets or clear timescales for cleaning up and protecting our rivers".
WWF chief executive David Nussbaum said: "The Water Framework Directive, which we've been working on for over 15 years, is the most important piece of environmental legislation ever passed for our rivers.
"It requires Europe's freshwater environments to reach 'good ecological status' by 2015. It should be the cornerstone of sustainable freshwater management for decades to come.
"But only 27 per cent of rivers in England and Wales are currently at 'good' status, and the government's plans will result in a mere 5 per cent improvement by 2015."
The organisations said they had had "numerous meetings" with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency, "but their responses have not reassured us that the government can meet the ambitious targets required by the directive - that's why we've reluctantly decided to pursue legal action".
They have lodged documents at the High Court as part of a call for a judicial review of the government's plans. If the plans are found to contravene the directive, the government may have to produce supplementary plans.
Radical action needed for sustainable abstraction, says water minister
Environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies has called for "radical action" to create a sustainable abstraction scheme.
Speaking at Waterwise's water efficiency conference in Oxford this week, Irranca-Davies said: "We really do need a sustainable abstraction scheme."
He said this was an area where Future Water, the government's water strategy, did not go far enough and there was "a case for more radical action".
"I still believe that we need to time limit licences," he said.
Shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert has stressed the importance of uncovering the true value of water.
He said demand measures and abstraction trading would go some way to maintaining water resources.
Herbert also reiterated Conservative policy on supporting inter-company trading through a virtual water grid.
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