Left to its murky fate: the River Wandle in Morden Hall Park, a precious chalk stream abandoned by the Labour government
‘Townie’ MP Steve Reed, having angered Jeremy Clarkson and the farming lobby, now seems set for a row with Feargal Sharkey over the fate of England’s under-threat chalk streams
Government officials have abandoned proposals to protect and clean up the country’s precious chalk streams.
Country sport: Steve Reed has lobbied country sports organisations and held unminuted meetings with the water industry
According to newspaper reports this weekend, the reason given by the Labour government is that there is “no mandate for the plan”.
The environment secretary is Croydon MP Steve Reed, who in less than six months in the job has allowed the polluting water companies to hike customers’ bills to pay for the damage they are causing, and who has provoked the anger of Jeremy Clarkson over inheritance tax proposals for farms.
Now Reed looks to be heading for an environmental row with national treasures Sir David Attenborough and Feargal Sharkey over an ecological catastrophe over which he is failing to act.
England is home to 85% of the world’s chalk streams, which are fed from chalk aquifers and renowned for being cold, alkaline and mineral-rich. They are vital for many species, including brown trout, and stretch across the south and east of the country, including Croydon’s River Wandle.
TV naturalist Attenborough has called chalk streams “one of the rarest habitats on Earth”.
Sharkey strongly supported Labour at the General Election, believing that they would crack down on polluting utility companies to clean up the country’s rivers, streams and other waterways.
The former pop star has walked the length of the Wandle, from its source in South Croydon, through Carshalton and Merton and on to the Thames at Wandsworth, as part of his campaign to highlight the perilous plight of the country’s chalk streams.
Polluters: Thames Water has been killing fish in the River Wandle with effluent for more than a decade
But Sharkey is likely to be bitterly disappointed, if not furious, at the news, slipped out quietly over the Christmas holiday, that a “chalk stream recovery pack” to restore the cold, mineral-rich waters to their glory, has been junked.
The River Wandle is one of only two urban chalk streams in London. Degraded into an open sewer during Victorian industrialisation, much work has cleaned it up to the point where trout can be caught in its waters today. But the Wandle remains vulnerable to sewage and other pollutants, which Sharkey has campaigned against.
The Wandle, and most of England’s other 200 or so chalk streams, are facing “immense pressure” from a twin threat of water companies abstracting too much water and releasing too much sewage pollution. The privatised water companies have also been criticised for failing to develop new infrastructure to secure supplies of water in a warming climate, avoiding the need to abstract water from chalk streams.
In south London, without any official moves to compel them to take action, Thames Water has said it could be 2035 before they undertake work to improve or protect the River Wandle from toxic pollution.
Prime culprits in polluting the Wandle are Thames Water themselves. In 2021, untreated sewage was poured into a Wandle tributary stream in South Norwood 20 times. The sewage came from a Thames Water pumping station in South Norwood Country Park, usually when there has been heavy rain.
It was 2023 when Conservative government ministers announced that they would create a national “chalk stream recovery pack”. They promised that it would be published by summer 2024. The plan even featured in Attenborough’s Wild Isles television show, which showed kingfishers swooping across chalk streams.
Concerned celebrity: Feargal Sharkey has walked the length of the Wandle and remains concerned over Thames Water’s neglect
But the ecologist tasked with producing the blueprint was told in September this year that the project has been shelved. The Times reports that, “Officials told Charles Rangeley-Wilson there was no mandate for the plan.”
Rangeley-Wilson’s plan included measures to create a new status of protection for chalk streams, plus special considerations for the water courses in road guidance, and better practical measures to reduce run-off from farms.
Support for physically restoring the streams was expected to be included, too.
Now Labour seems to have junked all that work.
Inside Croydon reported last month how environment secretary Reed had been found out enjoying corporate hospitality at the expense of companies that own one of the worst polluting water firms.
The townie MP for Streatham and Croydon North has also been exposed as having attended a series of meetings with the water bosses which were all kept secret and strictly “off the record”, raising suspicions over what must have been discussed and what undertakings were sought, or given.
Ecologist Rangeley-Wilson was appointed by the Environment Agency in 2021.
“We as a country are not doing enough to protect your streams,” he is quoted as saying by the newspaper.
“It’s not entirely down to the government, [but] there’s certain things that are in the gift of the government, and protected status is one of them.
“The action plan is agreed and written. It is utterly baffling to me that this new government would want to shelve all that work,” he said.
According to The Times, Labour’s water minister, Emma Hardy, during a Commons debate in October, “sidestepped a question about whether the rivers were a key part of the government’s plans to tackle water pollution”.
Hardy said that chalk streams “mean a lot to this government”. But no mention was made about Rangeley-Wilson’s long-delayed pack.
National treasure: Sir David Attenborough featured the government’s chalk streams plan on television. Steve Reed’s government has junked the project
The draft plan committed to creating a new status of protection for chalk streams, plus special considerations for the water courses in road guidance and better practical measures to reduce run-off from farms.
Support for physically restoring the streams was expected too.
“Rangeley-Wilson said the government has told him that it plans to focus on chalk streams in national parks and national landscapes, formerly known as areas of outstanding natural beauty,” the newspaper reported.
But as the ecologist points out, this leaves some of the most vulnerable chalk streams, and those in the worst condition, including the urban Wandle, abandoned to a murky fate.
A DEFRA spokesperson told The Times: “This government is committed to restoring chalk streams and is investing in river catchment projects to improve chalk streams, which will help clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.”
Which all seems womewhat at odds with deciding to junk a ready-to-go package of measures waiting for Reed and his Labour colleagues when they were elected.
Read more: Minister Reed attended unminuted meetings with water bosses
Read more: ‘I don’t think it’s helpful you ask questions like this’ squirms MP Reed
Read more: Suited and booted: Norbury Alli’s donations and No10 access
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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Labour seem desperate to prove that they can be just as incompetent and heartless as the Conservatives.
We deserve better than both of them.
I appreciate your carefully worded comment Peter, but it could easily be mis-construed. Reform UK polled twice as many voters as Greens, and I’d guess that if you had to choose between Labour and Reform, it’d be a case of better the devil you know!
You write “seem”. Whilst Labour have had make Tough Decisions (TM) early on, I don’t think that compares anywhere to many of the neglectful and malicious choices (and approaches) the Tories made under successive governments. Whilst equating them may be politically opportune for you, it risks populism and a political direction quite firmly away from the Greens. Good luck with stirring the hornet’s nest in this way.
What?!
Bollocks. Labour promised change. Instead they are delivering the same tired warped agenda set by the Conservatives.
They haven’t made tough choices but ducked them. Instead of governing and taxing the rich and their corporations, they are picking on women of a certain age, farmers, small businesses that rely on part-time low-paid staff and anyone who pays water bills
If people want right-wing politics, they’ll go for Farage’s fascists instead of Starmer’s Stalinists or BadEnoch’s bellends
Thank you Inside Croydon for drawing attention to this.