Without regulatory reforms and proper funding, the country will lack a muscular enforcer to strike fear among polluters
The organisers of the March for Clean Water – that’s Feargal Sharkey and River Action, supported by organisations that range from Surfers Against Sewage to the RSPB to the Women’s Institute – make an excellent point: while it’s nice that the government will bring a water bill to parliament, the initiatives revealed so far “are not nearly extensive enough to address the scale of the UK’s water pollution crisis”.
You bet. None of the four “initial steps” announced by the environment secretary, Steve Reed, last month are likely to cause sleepless nights in any boardroom. The first, to ensure companies’ funding for infrastructure investment is ringfenced, read like a description of how the regulatory system in England and Wales was always supposed to work. One fears that the second, to add the protection of customers and the environment to companies’ articles of association, will be cosmetic; directors can always be fuzzy about how they interpret their fiduciary duties.
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