Government reforms risk making it harder to expose scandals like “Dirty Business” sewage pollution, groups warn in letter to DEFRA Secretary of State

Fish Legal, the Angling Trust and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) have written to Emma Reynolds, the Secretary of State for DEFRA, warning that proposed changes to environmental law could make it harder and riskier for organisations to uncover environmental failures like the sewage pollution scandal highlighted in Channel 4’s Dirty Business.

The Nuclear Regulatory Review’s stated aim is to ‘enable nuclear delivery through regulatory reform.’ The Review makes clear that the Government seeks reform well beyond nuclear energy, with implications across other sectors.

This debate is unfolding in the weeks after Channel 4’s Dirty Business revealed to a mass audience the scale of sewage pollution in our rivers.  That investigation, led by WASP, relied on sewage discharge data that only became public after Fish Legal’s landmark 2015 legal case forced water companies to disclose it. Eleven years later, this evidence has provoked unprecedented public anger about the sewage scandal.

Putting aside the unhelpful ‘nature versus growth’ debate which has framed arguments so far, the letter reflects concerns that the plans in the Government’s Response will undermine essential democratic and accountability functions that environmental law serves to protect.

The 2015 Fish Legal victory was possible because the law guaranteed access to environmental information under the international Aarhus Convention, to which the UK is a signatory. The Government has now signalled that it may amend how those protections apply in the UK.  The convention guarantees affordable access to justice to everyone, not just wealthy companies, a principle that Fish Legal and many other environmental groups rely on to bring legal claims.

“The freedom of information access that Fish Legal gained from secretive water companies allowed WASP to do the investigation that the regulators were dodging and hiding. It exposed a massive criminal exploitation of billpayers and the environment that had made £billions. That seems to have irritated some of the powerful funds that profit from privatised water, and they have openly persuaded the government to make legislation more attractive to them. Now we are seeing our own government starting to cynically undermine the progress made under previous administrations to the disadvantage of the public it has a duty to protect. What happened to serving the people?” Ash Smith, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.

Zoe Wedderburn-Day, Head of Policy & Strategy, Fish Legal, said: “We are deeply concerned that if these potentially extensive judicial review reforms are put in place, bringing cases that expose public authority failings would be harder and far riskier for a small organisation like Fish Legal. Faced with that level of uncertainty, the chances of these types of cases being brought would be much lower, all of which could leave the public in the dark about the ongoing scale of regulatory and/or water company failings.”

The Angling Trust and Fish Legal identified 3 critical risks in the government’s current direction:

• Restricting Access to Justice: The government’s response extends restrictive judicial review reforms to environmental permitting and nuclear site licensing, reserving the ability to extend into other major planning regimes. By raising cost caps and limiting challenges to a single opportunity, the government is taking a firmer stance against the Aarhus-based protections that ensure legal action is not restricted to only the wealthiest organisations.
• Weakening Environmental Checks: Proposals have been accepted that weaken environmental checks for major projects, particularly those protecting vital wildlife sites. The groups warn that portraying environmental legal challenges as an “obstacle to development” prioritises short-term growth over long-term accountability.
• Going beyond the nuclear industry: The Government has clearly framed this as an extension of its wider mission to deregulate in the name of growth. Its effects would be felt throughout the country by wildlife with fewer protections and by people through reduced access to justice.

Dirty Business reminded the country why access to justice matters and how vital these legal rights are in uncovering environmental failures. Environmental safeguards are not an abstract process. They are how failures are uncovered when institutions fall short. Before any of these reforms are implemented, Ministers should consider a simple question: would we have uncovered the sewage scandal as early, or as fully, under a system that made it harder and riskier to challenge?

This is not an argument against infrastructure or against growth. It is an argument for preserving the legal mechanisms that ensure growth and accountability can coexist.

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Contact: [email protected]

Notes to Editors:  Letter to Secretary of State at DEFRA

Rt Hon Emma Reynolds MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

16 March 2026

The Fingleton Review and the role of environmental law in safeguarding transparency and accountability

We write on behalf of Fish Legal, the Angling Trust and Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) regarding the Government’s response to the Nuclear Regulatory Review by John Fingleton and the subsequent reshaping of the environmental rules governing major infrastructure projects.

Discussion surrounding the review has, from all sides, focused heavily on the perceived need to reduce delays in the planning and delivery of major projects in the name of economic growth, and the risks posed to the environment by reforms. Putting aside the nature versus growth debate, we are concerned that the plans in the Government’s Response will undermine essential democratic and accountability functions that environmental law serves to protect.

This debate is unfolding in the weeks after Channel 4’s Dirty Business revealed to a mass audience the scale of sewage pollution in our rivers. The public anger we are seeing is grounded in evidence.  Every piece of which had to withstand legal scrutiny to be shown in the final cut of Dirty Business. A lot of it could not have been obtained without Fish Legal’s 2015 legal case, which forced water companies to disclose sewage discharge data.

Fish Legal originally asked the water companies for information about their Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) discharges into rivers. That information request was refused. The courts overruled that decision, establishing water companies as public bodies whose sewage discharge records were environmental information and had to be released on public request¹. This unlocked water industry data, which has led us to a state of unprecedented public knowledge about the sewage scandal, peaking with the release of the drama-documentary ‘Dirty Business.’

It was possible because the law guaranteed access to environmental information under the international Aarhus Convention, to which the UK is a signatory. This same Convention also guarantees affordable access to justice, a principle that Fish Legal and many other environmental groups rely on to bring legal claims.

In 2025, we saw the first Government recalibration of these laws that guarantee affordable access to justice with its reforms to judicial review for NSIPs in the Planning & Infrastructure Act. The Government’s Response now extends those reforms to environmental permitting and nuclear site licencing whilst reserving the ability to extend beyond to other major planning regimes. These reforms include raising and cascading the cost caps, limiting challenges to a single opportunity and taking a firmer stance in relation to Aarhus based protections.  These are the very provisions which ensure that the cost of legal action and the ability to access justice is not restricted to rich organisations who can afford it.  The Government’s adoption of Recommendation 20 of the Fingleton Review would, if necessary, “amend the Aarhus Convention” reserving the UK’s right to dispute any challenges against this by other signatories.   The Government has also accepted the proposals that weaken some of the environmental checks that major projects must pass before they can be approved, particularly the rules that protect important wildlife sites.

The reforms in the Government’s Response are not only presented in the context of nuclear energy, but there is also a clear intention to extend these to other sectors. This approach is portraying environmental legal challenges as an obstacle to development that should be reduced.

We are deeply concerned that if these potentially extensive judicial review reforms are put in place, bringing cases that expose public authority failings would be harder and far riskier for a small organisation like Fish Legal. Faced with that level of uncertainty, the chances of these types of cases being brought would be much lower, all of which could leave the public in the dark about the ongoing scale of regulatory and/or water company failings. 

Dirty Business has reminded the country why access to justice matters. Environmental safeguards are not an abstract process. They are how failures are uncovered when institutions fall short. Before any decision is taken to narrow those safeguards, Ministers should consider a simple question: would we have uncovered the sewage scandal as early, or as fully, under a system that made it harder and riskier to challenge?

This is not an argument against infrastructure or against growth. It is an argument for preserving the legal mechanisms that ensure growth and accountability can coexist. 

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Cook
On behalf of Fish Legal and Angling Trust

Peter Hammond & Ashley Smith
On behalf of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP)