Time is running out to fix England’s water system

What is the state of England’s drainage infrastructure? According to one recent report, not good – with overflow from Britain’s dated sewage systems blamed for causing severe pollution in many of England’s rivers. Now a coalition of conservationists, river enthusiasts (including wild swimmers, fishermen and some well-known figures such as the singer Feargal Sharkey) and stakeholders are calling for action to improve the state of the water system and protect England’s rivers for the future.

But what could be done about the problem? Water UK, the trade association for the water industry, said water companies were looking to invest £6 billion in what it called ‘environmental improvements’ (including £1 billion to address the specific issue of sewage overflow). Yet the organisation was also clear this wasn’t something that water companies could solve alone – and certainly not without stronger and more decisive action from the government.

With the issue clearly resonating in rural areas in particular, The Spectator hosted a special boardroom lunch ahead of the Conservative party conference. The event, chaired by The Spectator’s associate editor Isabel Hardman (a keen wild swimmer and river enthusiast), brought together politicians with an interest in water and river health, as well as other groups with a direct stake in the issue (including Water UK – who kindly sponsored the discussion).

As she opened the discussion, Water UK’s chief executive, Christine McGourty, outlined her view. ‘I think if you look back over the past 100 years, it feels that rivers have been in various crises over the decades,’ she said. ‘Some of the challenges we have now are historic, whereas others are new. We’ve got the new issue of climate change, for example, which is going to make things worse when it comes to changes to river flow and all sorts of things.’ The organisation was preparing to publish a report, she said, which would set out the situation in more detail.

‘I think that we need to hold our hands up and be humble about the things that we get wrong and where the challenges are,’ she continued. It would also mean better engagement with organisations that had traditionally been critical of the water industry. So what did those groups make of this plan? ‘What we’d like to see is the water sector working with NGOs like us on nature-based solutions to add more resilience to our water system and rivers,’ said Christine Colvin from the Rivers Trust. ‘We don’t just want to see more concrete being poured, thus increasing our carbon footprint, in order to improve water security.’

But it wasn’t just conservationists who found themselves at odds with the water industry. Farming groups also had their historic issues, having claimed, in the past, that they were being unfairly blamed for increasing river pollution. Yet the National Farmers Union’s deputy president Stuart Roberts insisted that there had been a shift in attitude within the agricultural community. ‘I think we’re getting to a point now where farming sees itself as part of the solution,’ he said. ‘And more farmers are realising that, if we don’t face big issues – be they water quality, food prevention or biodiversity loss, we’re going to start losing the buy-in from society for what we do.’

For Martin Salter – a former Labour MP and now Head of Policy at the Angling Trust – there was a fundamental problem at play. ‘Water is just too cheap in Britain,’ he said. ‘Because it rains so much, everyone assumes water is plentiful and we don’t invest in the infrastructure we need. That means the water industry has to chase the cheapest sources of water possible – including boring down into chalk streams – because it’s under a statutory obligation to supply us all with water.’ Compared to Europe, he said, the UK had the slowest replacement rate for its sewage infrastructure. ‘We can bang on all we like about how the Environment Agency isn’t fit for purpose – which it isn’t – and we can have all the amendments we want in the Environment Bill,’ he continued. ‘But until someone puts in the investment to stop this creaking old system from pouring sewage into groundwater or overwhelming the treatment works then we won’t get anywhere.’

Baroness McIntosh – a Conservative peer and former Tory MP for Vale of York and Thirsk and Malton – raised a linked issue: the automatic right for housing developers to connect property to the sewage system. ‘We cannot continue to build 300,000 houses a year if we’re not going to invest in our water system,’ she said. Not only was this placing yet more strain on the infrastructure, she added, but potentially causing flooding in areas with existing developments. Regulations were brought forward to end the automatic right to connect in 2013 but were resisted by developers.

‘Never has there been a time when environmental issues have been greater and much could be achieved through building regulations and natural solutions’ continued Baroness McIntosh. ‘Much is hanging on the secondary levitation under the Environment Act.’

Could there be an opportunity in the government’s re-thinking of its signature planning bill? ‘That whole question is about to be reset and the government will be looking for something more exciting than zonal planning to replace it,’ said Richard Benwell, chief executive of the campaigning coalition Wildlife and Countryside Link. ‘This is a chance to reset planning policy to ensure that every decision is compatible with halting nature’s decline by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050.’ As Liberal Democrat peer Lord Chidgey noted, the river issue had already shown salience in the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election where chalk streams had been raised by voters leaving the Conservatives for the Lib Dems.

The ideal outcome, Mr Benwell said, would be a complete rethink about the role of water – and rivers – within both infrastructure and environmental policy. ‘The government has typically been quite parochial on this question, thinking about nitrates and phosphorus only,’ he said. Instead, it should take a longer term approach to different catchments of water, placing greater responsibility on Ofwat, the water regulation authority, to raise standards. ‘They’ve been so blinkered on this question,’ he said. ‘They should be catchment managers, not just concrete pourers.’

Consensus had clearly formed around the table about the scale – and urgency – of the challenge. Yet while the issue was a difficult one, it did have one political advantage in that it embodied several of the Prime Minister’s characteristic enthusiasms. With an opportunity to ‘level up’, protect the environment and build big infrastructure on the line, will the issue finally see the political breakthrough it needs?