Coalition seeks judicial review of Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan

A coalition of claimants is taking legal action aimed at compelling the Government to rewrite its Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan (SODRP) to impose much tighter deadlines on water company clean-up.

The claimants are led by led by not-for-profit legal campaign group Good Law Project, and feature Mersea oyster company Richard Haward’s Oysters, and surfer and campaigner Hugo Tagholm, former chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage and now executive director of healthy ocean advocate Oceana in the UK.

They have issued a Pre-Action Protocol letter to environment secretary Ranil Jayawardena which argues the SODRP is insufficient to meet the secretary of state’s legal obligations under s.141A of the Water Industry Act 1991, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Public Trust Doctrine, which provides ancient common law rights for residents to fish, gather food, and navigate over coastal waters and the foreshore of England. This is ahead of a proposed judicial review of the plan.

The group has requested a response by 1 November, and noted it is in discussions with other potential claimants, who may be added to the claim later.

Among its recent activities, Good Law Project was among those who recently forced the Government to go back to the drawing board on its Net Zero strategy. It said: “We hope that we can do the same with this case.”