Appeal Against Discharge Consents
Fish Legal, the legal arm of the Angling Trust, has today written to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs attacking the decision of six of the large water plcs to appeal against revised discharge consents sought by the Environment Agency to put an end to privatisation era temporary consents.
Almost twenty years ago, in 1989, at the time of water privatisation, the water companies were granted temporary consents for many thousands of discharges carrying storm sewage into English and Welsh rivers. This followed the discovery, immediately pre-privatisation, that vast numbers of these discharges had no legal consent.
At the time, it was quite clear that the granting of temporary consent was a quick fix designed to enable the Government of the day to sell the water companies into private hands with no potential criminal liabilities.
Last year, Fish Legal made requests under EU freedom of information laws to the Environment Agency which revealed that between 3,000 and 4,000 of these temporary consents granted almost twenty years ago still existed. These temporary consents were without any properly enforceable conditions, meaning they were as good as useless in controlling pollution.
The request made to the Agency followed a series of cases of damage to fisheries caused by sewage discharges emanating from pipes that still enjoyed these temporary consents. Under pressure from Fish Legal, the Environment Agency decided, in April of this year, to impose a set of standard conditions on all those discharges in order to bring them into proper regulation.
It is, therefore, with utter dismay that Fish Legal has learnt that Anglian Water, Yorkshire Water, Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru, Thames Water, Severn Trent Water and United Utilities (formerly North West Water) have appealed against the revised discharge consents that the Agency sought to attach to those discharges.
Guy Linley-Adams, Head of Legal at Fish Legal, commented
“Although many years too late, the approach taken by the Environment Agency has been entirely reasonable in attempting to deal with this long-standing hangover from privatisation. That these water companies have seen fit to appeal against a set of conditions which are hardly onerous and which any reasonable person would consider the bare minimum that should apply to pipes potentially discharging raw sewage into our rivers, is shameless. Fish Legal’s view is that twenty years is far too long to have left these sewage discharges effectively unregulated.”
Fish Legal has written to the Secretary of State in support of the Environment Agency’s revised discharge consents and now calls upon all six of the water companies concerned to withdraw their appeals immediately..
Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Angling Trust and Fish Legal, said:
“This is a test of the water companies’ commitment to avoiding pollution of English and Welsh rivers. If these water companies press ahead with these appeals, then they can expect widespread hostility from anglers into whose waters these companies seem to feel they should be able to discharge raw sewage without condition or penalty.”
Dredging of River Sence During Spawning Season
Two brothers, who were taken to Court by Fish Legal, the legal arm of the Angling Trust, on behalf of the Gopsall Fishing Club, for dredging the River Sence in Leicestershire during the spawning season, yesterday gave the Court a binding undertaking never to dredge the river again.
Mr W. Rickard and Mr R. Rickard of Willow Brook Nurseries gave their undertakings – or binding promises – at Nuneaton County Court, following the issue of proceedings by Fish Legal.
Gopsall Fishing Club (GFC), which holds the fishing rights to the river, approached Fish Legal in 2008 after the Environment Agency failed to prosecute the brothers despite warning them in advance that they would need to apply for permissions to dredge.
The Agency failed to prosecute even after the brothers admitted that they had done so without seeking permission. Dredging and damaging spawning grounds without permission is an offence under the Local Land Drainage Byelaws and the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1976.
Fish Legal issued proceedings against the brothers, asking the Court for an injunction to prevent further dredging from taking place, but the Defendants agreed to settle the case without the need to go to a full trial.
Mark Owen, secretary of the Gopsall Angling Club commented:
“The Club has won awards from the local wildlife trust and worked closely with Twycross Zoo, the Wild Trout Trust and Natural England in improving the river habitat for fish and other wildlife including kingfishers, otters and barn owls. The timing of the dredging was as bad as could be imagined as it took place during the spawning season. It released sediments which would have settled on top of the clean gravels. It also destroyed bank areas close to an otter holt. The members of the club were therefore angered by the destruction and expected the Environment Agency to take action against the Rickards. However, the Agency decided inexplicably to drop the case against them. Now, however, we are reassured the undertaking which has been given should protect our fishery in the future.”
Justin Neal, solicitor at Fish Legal, said:
“The Environment Agency – the body charged with protecting rivers such as the Sence – simply failed to enforce against the brothers despite warning them not to dredge the river and even after obtaining admissions under caution that the brothers had done so.
One would hope that, in future, the Agency will take a tougher approach against those who damage rivers, but if it doesn’t the Angling Trust and Fish Legal will be there to do the job.”
Notes
- Fish Legal is the new name for the Anglers’ Conservation Association, which was founded in 1948 to use the law to fight to protect the aquatic environment and fisheries. Since then, the organisation has won in excess of two thousand cases and recovered many millions of pounds in damages, which has been returned to the members represented to plough back into angling and the protection of the aquatic environment. Only four cases have ever been lost in Court. Fish Legal employs its own in-house legal team covering the whole of the UK, including two Scots-qualified lawyers.
- Fish Legal operates throughout the UK and is backed by thousands of individual anglers. In England only, Fish Legal is the legal arm of the Angling Trust.
- Angling clubs or fishery owners wishing to join Fish Legal and individuals wishing to become supporters of Fish Legal should phone 01568 620447 during office hours, write to the address below, or download a subscription form from the website: www.fishlegal.net
