The High Court has granted permission for sewage pollution campaigners to apply for judicial review of Defra’s Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan (SODRP).
While a court date has not yet been set, two similar cases are expected to be heard in conjunction, after permission was granted for both to proceed to a full hearing:
• Good Law Project, the Marine Conservation Society, Richard Haward’s Oysters and surfer and activist Hugo Tagholm want to compel the government to rewrite its SODPR to make it “fit for purpose” via stronger protections and prompter deadlines for water companies to act. This challenge revives an old common law legal doctrine, the Public Trust Doctrine, which Good Law Project said had been recognised by English courts since 1299. It said the Doctrine states that: “The state has a duty to safeguard vital natural resources and hold them in trust for the benefit of both current and future generations. It enshrines the right for people to fish, gather food and navigate our shared tidal waters. Our challenge makes the case that the Public Trust Doctrine requires the government to take positive steps to safeguard our coastal waters. Winning this case could set a landmark precedent which would enable campaigners to use this doctrine for legal challenges to compel the Government to protect our shared natural environment.”
• Fish protection campaigner, WildFish, argued the SODRP is unlawful on the grounds that: “It approves continuing unlawful conduct, fails to consider the existing law, breaches the Habitats Regulations, and is irrational.” WildFish has instructed James Maurici KC and Charles Bishop of Landmark Chambers, and Fieldfisher LLP, to bring its challenge. WildFish, which has launched a crowdfund to help with costs, said regulations to deal with the problem of untreated sewage overflows in anything other than extreme weather conditions have been in place since 1994. “The underlying cause of the current problem is the continued failure of the water companies to comply with the duties imposed on them, and the government, to properly enforce them. The Plan does not deal with this.”
Chief executive of WildFish, Nick Measham, said: “We have no problem with the plan being used to arrive at an initial rough estimate of the costs required to provide upgrades to storm overflows. However, its failure to deal with the vast majority of relevant outfalls and the production of sub-targets and headline targets, which have no basis in the application of the existing regulations, is unacceptable. We want the government to give the relevant agencies the mandate and the money to enforce and compel the water companies to deliver the infrastructure urgently required to end sewage pollution. We want action now not plans for the never, never.”
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