The Evenlode

Fri 3 Jul 2020, 18:13 (last edited on Fri 3 Jul 2020, 18:26)

The links are coming in so thick and fast I can’t keep up – but here’s another really interesting one!  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/mp-crackdown-raw-sewage-discharges-rivers-philip-dunne-private-members-bill-polluter

The more I delve into this the more it seems there is to delve into – and some of it’s pretty murky (sorry!).  I hope – whoever you might be – you’ll bear with me thinking aloud here, but this clearly goes well beyond the banks of the Evenlode.  What I’m thinking is to flag up the more contentious aspects over on the Dark Side (i.e. the Debate section) once I’ve delved sufficiently but I’d like to invite others to think about how best we might take this forward locally – and thus ‘feed into’ the wider debate.

There is also an urgency to it which I hadn’t anticipated in that a ‘woman who knows’ has just told me that the Environment Bill is due to come back to the Commons in October – which may well explain Mr Dunne’s timing (see above link).  His detailed proposals I don’t think have been published yet but very few private members’ Bills get through and he may be hoping to do a deal so that they are incorporated into the government’s.

The main point for now though is that the Bill will replace the relevant EU legislation post-Brexit.  That is both an opportunity – to improve the existing regime – and a threat in that it could result in an even weaker regulatory system and removal of targets which are legally binding on the government (the UK has been prosecuted at least twice for failing to meet the requirements of EU water directives ).

This of course is an issue which is and should be part of a wider green agenda – but it could be easily overshadowed by other issues and the initiative lost if not pursued separately - and at such a crucial time.  My thinking at the moment is to look to the WASP example – and go for CUTE!  - Clean Up The Evenlode! i.e. as a single issue pressure group (though may need to look wider than just sewage waste) as I think that’s likely to be more effective. But what do others think? We can’t have a meeting just now so let’s hear others’ thoughts here on the Forum.

If all this is new to you, do look at WASP’s ‘Ten things you should know before you put your hand in a river’ – link below.

Oh and a small irony to leave you with.  Rather as the European Convention on Human rights was drafted by a former British Lord Chancellor, much of the EU Water Framework Directive was apparently the brainchild of one Stanley Johnson - and was initially known informally as 'the British Directive'....