Fish campaigner challenges Defra’s Storm Overflow Plan as unlawful

Only days after Defra published its Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan, campaigner for wild fish conservation, WildFish, has called for the plan to be withdrawn on the basis that it is unlawful.

WildFish has issued a "letter before action", the first step in potential judicial review proceedings, to the Government, requesting the withdrawal. Chief executive, Nick Measham, explained: “WildFish’ lawyers have concluded that Defra’s much vaunted Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan, issued last Friday, is unlawful on many counts.

"The plan’s central ‘headline target’ is, in effect, a plan to allow up to 100% of storm overflows that are currently discharging in or close to ‘high priority sites’ to continue to cause adverse ecological impact to those sites for the next 13 years to 2035, and to allow up to 25% of those same storm overflows to continue to cause adverse ecological impact for a further ten years to 2045. The plan will also allow up to 100% of storm overflows discharging anywhere else to continue to cause adverse ecological impact for the next 28 years to 2050.

“In short, the plan envisages, allows or otherwise encourages the continuation of breaches of existing environmental laws by the water companies, by Ofwat and by the secretary of state himself, for many years to come, in some cases until 2050. The plan is, in fact, a classic ‘smoke and mirrors’ exercise by a government that has no real appetite to deal robustly with the appalling sewage pollution of English rivers caused by water companies.”