Exclusive: Assessment that used to happen annually will now take six years despite rising concerns
A nationwide annual health check of England’s water bodies which used to take place annually, will now take six years to complete, prompting anger from campaigners and politicians, as public alarm grows over the state of the nation’s rivers and coasts.
The assessments, undertaken by the Environment Agency, look at the ecological and chemical condition of rivers, lakes, groundwater, and transitional and coastal waters, and are required under the Water Framework Directive (WFD).
In 2019, the last time the full assessments took place, just 14% of rivers were in good ecological health and none met standards for good chemical health. Before 2016 the tests were done annually, but the government has now opted not to deliver a complete update until 2025, the latest permissible under the WFD.
Clean water advocates accused the government of trying to hide the data.
Rivers activist Feargal Sharkey said: “The future of England’s rivers has been sacrificed in a cynical act of self preservation by the very same failed government agency set up to protect them.”
The Green party peer Natalie Bennett said the government “clearly recognised the huge public anger about the parlous state of our waterways, but instead of taking action to clean them up, it is instead trying to hide the data”.
She added that the “stench of pollution, the choking of our waters with sewage, plastics and farm runoff is evident to all”, and that the Green party wanted to see a return to more frequent publication of the river health statistics. “Democracy demands transparency, and that’s one more thing this government is not delivering.”
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