Local residents have told me that they want to see decisive action to tackle pollution in our streams and rivers. Last year I was proud to vote for measures in the Environment Act that provide realistic solutions to eliminate the impact of sewage on our waterways and I welcome that the Government is taking tough action to combat these appalling illegal sewage discharges that we have seen recently.
We must continue to press on and use these powers to fine companies wherever they have failed to comply with the law; link water company dividend payments to their environmental performance so that their leadership has a personal incentive to work with us to enforce environmental standards; and use the fines from any breaches to clean up and enhance our local environment and chalk streams.
But we must also do more to prevent breaches from happening in the first place and damaging our precious chalk streams. I will be speaking again to our local water companies to emphasise the need for them to take pro-active action to ensure all possible mitigations are in place to prevent waterways from being polluted. Tough penalties are an important punitive measure, but prevention of pollution in the first place is key to protection of our living rivers’ habitats and ecology.
