A push for public ownership of water
Plus grouse moors, incinerators and more with this round up of eco news from across North Yorkshire and the North East
Good morning! I’m Sarah Hartley and this is The Northern Eco weekly update. As you’ve received this newsletter then either you subscribed, or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter, then you can click on this handy little button below.
There’s so much happening around the North East and North Yorkshire just now that this week’s newsletter is a slightly different format to fit it all in. Instead of kicking off with a long read followed by snippets, we’ve a selection of shorter posts with links which will take you to more information. Let me know what you think of this format via the poll below. Talking of polls, it turns out that most of you found the Climate Emergency UK scorecards which keep a check on your councils’ work on climate targets to be useful. 57% of voters in last week’s poll said so.
My personal highlights from this week’s news would be:
⚠️ Upcoming TV focus on incinerators
🪶 Politicians debating grouse shooting
🌳 Tree planting success
💦 And now we’ll get cracking with some important news about the water system….
Latest water news
💦 Campaigners call for cleaner, cheaper and fairer water
Yesterday saw the release of a major report from campaigners at the People’s Commission on the Water Sector.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen any major announcements coming out from the people working hard to change our water system in the UK and this independent report has been produced in parallel with the official commission.
The People’s Commission on the Water Sector was set up by four academics with expertise in economics, water governance, innovation and law to fill the gaps they perceive in the Government’s Cunliffe commission, and to reflect public concerns.
They presented their findings to MPs and leaders from NGOs and public institutions at 5.30pm yesterday. The headline recommendation was a transition to public ownership of water.
One of the group, Prof Becky Malby BEM, who regular readers will know from the strenuous efforts at Ilkley Clean River Group, looked forward to future change.
“Public ownership is inevitable. It is cheaper, fairer and will deliver cleaner waterways. No amount of changes to incentives or regulation will turn the privatised monopoly into a service the public trusts that can deliver the changes needed to secure water for the future. We have been humbled by the generosity of people who, with us, know we can do better. The proposals we share here provide an agenda for a hopeful and positive future.”
The other three key recommendations were:
To set up a strategic advisory group of experts for water to support a cross-sector national crisis committee to determine a long-term strategy for water conservation, protection and water efficiency, to radicallyreduce pollution.
Overhaul governance by having the regulator Ofwat use its current powers to require that at least one-third of the board of all water companies be elected by workers or unions, and up to a half be chosen by service-users or local government, in consultation with environmental citizen groups. I
Hold those responsible for pollution accountable. The full environmental costs, such as from forever chemicals need to be identified and allocated to the polluters.
The findings and recommendations of this commission were welcomed and supported by North Yorkshire campaigners at Stop Ure Pollution (SUP) and Save Our Swale(SOS).
An SOS spokesperson said: “We strongly support the People's Commission report as we believe that the Cunliffe Review, commissioned by the Government and billed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help rebuild public trust and restore confidence in the water industry will just recommend maintaining the status quo with a few tweaks around stronger regulation, different incentives and some joint planning.
“We understand it will be published in a few weeks however we do not believe it will do enough to address the route cause of our water crisis, or ensure water security now and into the future. We therefore welcome the People's Commission report as a direct challenge to the thinking that more of the same will work. It wont.”
We’d love to hear your views on this.
💦 River Ure Water Quality Report
The results are out! A collaborative effort between Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust and Stop Ure Pollution (SUP), supported by volunteers and funded by Yorkshire Water has tested and analysed water in North Yorkshire’s River Ure.
The findings from the water quality sampling conducted on the River Ure and its major tributaries on August 21st and October 9th 2024 is now available. This study aimed to analyse various water quality parameters across 45 sites to establish a baseline profile, identify pollution sources and assess the suitability of potential bathing sites.
The key findings were:
Physico-Chemical Parameters: The results indicated low levels of pollutants during the low flow sampling in August, with higher levels observed in October due to increased river flow and surface runoff.
E.coli concentrations: were higher in October compared to August, likely due to storm discharges and agricultural runoff. Several sites, including potential bathing sites at Aysgarth Falls and Masham, had E.coli levels above the threshold for safe bathing.
Pollution Sources: The study identified significant pollution sources, including agricultural runoff, septic tanks, and storm discharges from sewage treatment works. The Tutt tributary showed particularly high levels of pollutants, warranting further investigation.
Download and read the full report at River Ure Water Quality Report.
“So people remembered when they were younger, you could go and splash about in the sea or go in the local river and you wouldn’t think twice.
“Whereas today, you take your children or grandchildren there and you worry about what contamination might be in there, or what illness they might get. And that says to you things have got worse, there’s been decline, degradation and that told people a big story about our country and where it was going.”
💦 The quote above taken from this wider report on Environment Secretary Steve Reed’s conversation with The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot at Hertfordshire’s Groundswell festival AKA ‘the Glastonbury for farms’.
The three most clicked links from last week were:
Council divests from Shell and BP
An experiment in weeding (since updated)
In other news
⚠️ The dirty reality leading to increased incinerator use
Several incinerator projects are proposed or underway in the North East as we’ve previously reported. The Environment Agency is expected to grant a permit for the Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility (TVERF) in Grangetown, Redcar, which would process up to 450,000 tonnes of waste per year (BBC) and there’s ongoing consultation for a high-temperature thermal treatment facility near Newton Aycliffe in County Durham, operated by Fornax (North East) Ltd, which would handle hazardous and clinical waste.
Why are these facilities on the increase? Our incredibly low rates for recycling waste are a big part of that issue - 31.2%, which was the lowest among all English regions.
On Saturday 12 July at 10:30 pm, the BBC News Disclosure programme (also on iPlayer) looks at the wider issue ahead of Scotland’s long-delayed landfill ban coming into force. 600,000 tonnes of household waste will have to be disposed of in some other way so reporter Kevin Keane visits one of a new generation of giant incinerators springing up across the country. They burn rubbish, creating energy from waste, and are less polluting than landfill. However, they still pump damaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and many local communities worry about the impact of pollution on their health. The obvious answer is to create less rubbish in the first place so Kevin hears from those trying to change our throwaway culture.
🪶 Politicians hear from anti grouse shooting campaigners
The issues around killing birds for sport on moorland was debated in the House of Commons last week. We often cover people’s petitions calling for change with campaigners on a wide variety of causes hoping to break the 100,000 signature barrier which means their cause can get parliamentary time.
So it was for Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and Mark Avery (Wild Justice) who achieved more than 104,000 signatures for their call on a ban saying they:
“believe that driven grouse shooting is bad for people, the environment and wildlife. People; we think grouse shooting is economically insignificant when contrasted with other real and potential uses of the UK’s extensive uplands.”
The debate prompted the former Prime Minister and Richmond and Northallerton MP Rishi Sunak to speak out in defence of grouse shooting (Sunak speaks up for shooting).
Since then, there’s been reaction from campaigners as well as the RSPB which said it share the concerns of Wild Justice and all who signed the petition about the damaging and often illegal activities associated with the intensive management of land for grouse shooting but they stop short of a ban.
☀️ There’s been some significant movement with solar farm applications in the past week. In County Durham, campaigners who claimed they would be kept prisoner in their own homes saw a plan rejected. Hare Hill Solar’s proposal for the large-scale site in Haswell Plough, was voted down as Bill Edgar reports.
Then, news that a large solar farm is set to be approved in the North Yorkshire countryside within a few fields of a solar scheme described as the Yorkshire’s largest as Joe Willis reports.
Compiling these reports for you it struck me that there now seems to be a constant flow of applications for solar farms and then campaigns launching to stop them. But where can we see an overview of what’s happening? Searching for a way to step back and look at the wider picture, turned up with this map from Net Zero Hub which details all infrastructure across the region. It’s not that intuitive to use, but it is possible to see the locations of infrastructure like solar farms and the status of the progress with the authorities.
Thank you for reading edition number 142 of The Northern Eco. I hope you’ve enjoyed being kept in know about environmental issues. We produce this newsletter on a Pay As You Feel basis so, if you feel it’s worth a few quid, now’s the perfect time to join our paying subscribers. The main newsletter is sent out at 7am every Tuesday and can’t exist without our paying subscribers. 🙏
And there’s more….
🪶 Numbers of Arctic terns have declined by around 30% at the Long Nanny Nature Reserve near Beadnell in Northumberland, Daniel Hall at ChronicleLive reports.
🌳 More than 10 million trees have been planted as part of a project to boost woodland in the north of England, a conservation charity has revealed, reports Lynette Horsburgh of the BBC. The Northern Forest scheme is aiming to eventually plant 50 million trees in and around cities including Liverpool, Chester, Preston, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, York and Hull by 2043.
🗑️ Data obtained by The Northern Echo shows that, between 2020 and the end of 2024, there have been 13,676 reports of fly-tipping across the town. The cost to clean up the dumped rubbish in this time has cost the council a staggering £822,113 - and the number of reports has been rising year on year since 2021, Alex O’Leary reports.
🌏 Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) is to push back its plans to become a net zero authority by ten years, despite being hoping to be a central location in the energy transition, reports Leigh Jones at The Teesside Lead. This sort of downplaying of targets is becoming commonplace according to Rebecca Willis, professor of energy and climate governance at Lancaster University writing in The Guardian.
She says: “We have found that politicians from all sides are hesitant to advocate for ambitious measures, because they think the public won’t support them. Yet this isn’t borne out by opinion polls and social research, which show consistently high levels of concern about the climate crisis, and support for action.”
🚜 More than 80% of UK farmers are worried that the “devastating” effect of the climate crisis could damage their ability to make a living, a study reported by Alfie Howlett at The Guardian has found.
🌿 As part of our In the Weeds campaign to have the pesticide glyphosate banned from public spaces like parks and playgrounds, we’re asking decision makers about their policies. Here is the result of my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Durham County Council.
That’s it for this week but don’t forget there are updates on the website and via social media through the week too.
If you’re looking for some eco action in the next week or so - do check out what’s on in July, and beyond.
Have a great week!