26 Jun 2024
An investigation by Unearthed has revealed that England’s beleaguered environmental regulator has been turning up late – or not at all – to three out of every four of the country’s worst pollution incidents. Between January 2017 and October 2023, the Environment Agency (EA) missed its own response time targets for more than 3,400 serious […]
19 Jun 2024
Having created a watchdog for the environment, the government took its teeth out and muzzled it. Can public outrage rouse the Environment Agency to action? Useful article from The Guardian, highlighting how government has gradually weakened and undermined the environmental regulator for England., including subsuming its independent website into Defra’s.
13 Mar 2024
The Sustainable Solutions for Water and Nature (SSWAN) partnership has published an outline of a new model and discussion paper for regulation of the water environment. The new SSWAN model shifts regulation towards catchment-based approaches to support cheaper, more innovative, more collaborative projects that more accurately reflect local priorities. SSWAN proposes a four-tier regulatory framework: […]
06 Mar 2024
The Drinking Water Inspectorate has published new research on dual pipe recycling systems to understand the associated risks and to assess the suitability of English and Welsh regulations to manage the risks from evolving systems. The research project found that many large-scale dual pipe systems in the UK have either been mothballed or have never […]
03 Jan 2024
Reported in the Los Angeles Times California is set to adopt regulations that will allow for sewage to be extensively treated, transformed into pure drinking water and delivered directly to people’s taps. The regulations are expected to be approved Tuesday (19 December) by the State Water Resources Control Board, enabling water suppliers to begin building […]
22 Nov 2023
Measuring Ofwat’s Impact presents an assessment of the benefits that the organisation generates as the economic regulator of the water sector. The report finds that Ofwat delivers customer benefits worth at least £1.13bn a year, against an average annual budget of around £30m. it focuses on three of its key work areas: the price review, casework […]
15 Nov 2023
The government has set out plans for an alternative transitional registration model (ATRm) to support UK REACH transitional registrations. This is “in response to concerns raised by the chemicals industry about the significant cost to businesses of accessing EU data packages”. According to the government, “This document outlines the government’s plans for an alternative transitional […]
26 Apr 2023
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a new report ‘Regulating to achieve environmental outcomes’, in which it scrutinises whether Defra is using regulation effectively in pursuit of its environmental agenda. It found green improvements, including those relating to water, are being put at risk by shortcomings in Defra’s oversight of regulation. According to the report, […]
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