After 10 Years Of Legal Fights, UK Appeals Court Upholds Plan To Clean Sewage-Wrecked Former Trout Stream

[hatrack]

A group of anglers trying to restore the ecosystem of a river have seen off a challenge by the environment secretary, Steve Reed, who claimed that cleaning up the waterway was administratively unworkable.

Reed pursued an appeal against a group of anglers from North Yorkshire, who had won a legal case arguing that the government and the Environment Agency’s plans to clean up the Upper Costa Beck, a former trout stream devastated by sewage pollution and runoff, were so vague they were ineffectual. The environment secretary decided, after Labour won the election last year, to continue the challenge, which had begun under the previous Conservative government.

Ed. - Excuse me, but What The Fuck, Labor Party?

On Wednesday, the appeal court found in favour of the anglers, the Pickering Fishery Association. The judges dismissed Reed’s argument that it was administratively unworkable to develop specific measures to clean up individual rivers, lakes and streams as is required by law under the water framework directive – legislation that aims to improve the quality of rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

EDIT

The anglers, who have spent more than 10 years trying to get the authorities to clean up the river, took the government and the EA to court in an attempt to force action. They successfully argued that the plan by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the EA to improve the stream lacked the legally required measures necessary to restore it – for example, it did not include the tightening of discharge permits for sewage treatment works. The judge in the high court found that the government had unlawfully failed to assess and identify specific measures to achieve the legally mandatory targets for the waterbody. That ruling was on Wednesday upheld by the appeal court.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/02/ministers-lose-appeal-against-yorkshire-anglers-river-pollution-ruling

[gab13by13]

1. 50 years ago we cleaned up a stream that ran through our borough.

It had sewage and mine drainage in it. Of course we also enforced the rule of eliminating sewage discharge into the creek.