Interactive map lays bare all 264 of England’s worst-performing GP practices

Emily Stearn www.dailymail.co.uk 

All of England’s worst performing GP practices were today named and shamed by a damning analysis.

MailOnline can reveal that 264 practices across the country are giving patients sub-standard care.

Every single one has now been flagged on our fascinating interactive map that links to all the inspection reports — allowing you to read, for yourself, exactly how they’re judged by regulators.

Some 42 GP practices — marked red on our map — were ranked ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). 

MAILONLINE APP USERS CAN USE THE MAP BY CLICKING HERE  

The CQC report can be found here

Richard Sharp has pumped money into a group that funds organisations like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Eurosceptics and the BBC-bashing News-Watch. Was this known at the time of his appointment?

Despite this he seems to have the resilience of a turnip, rather than a lettuce. – Owl

Josiah Mortimer bylinetimes.com 

The Chairman of the BBC gave tens of thousands of pounds through his personal charity to an organisation that funds right-wing organisations in the UK – several of which back the privatisation of the BBC. 

Richard Sharp – who has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservatives – gave the money to the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) think tank, Byline Times can reveal. 

There is already growing internal opposition from staff at the BBC and an investigation into Sharp’s alleged role in helping to arrange a £800,000 loan for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson before he was appointed as the corporation’s Chairman by Johnson in February 2021.

Sharp has denied all wrongdoing but is cooperating with the BBC’s investigation. 

The IPR does not have a website but is run by several prominent Conservative backers. Sharp’s donations, via his personal charity the Sharp Foundation, include £20,000 in 2017 and the same amount in 2018.

In 2018, the IPR funded analysis critical of the BBC’s coverage of Brexit, as newly-unearthed Charity Commission records reveal.

The IPR has also given money to an organisation, News-Watch, which produces content almost exclusively targeted at the BBC, as well as the Centre for Policy Studies and the TaxPayers’ Alliance – the latter of which campaigns for tax cuts and rails against “wasteful” government spending.

It is not clear if Richard Sharp disclosed these donations to the BBC upon his appointment as Chairman. They were not mentioned to parliamentarians when he was quizzed by MPs last month over the Johnson loan scandal.

Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee found that Sharp’s “omissions” relating to the Johnson loan “denied MPs the opportunity to fulfil their scrutiny role, as they were left without the full facts to make a judgement on his suitability” when he appeared before the Committee for a pre-appointment hearing in January 2021.

The Committee called on Sharp to “reflect on the potential damage caused to trust in the corporation”.

Richard Sharp refused to comment when approached with several questions from Byline Times but he is understood to argue that he donates to a range of organisations in the spirit of “lively debate”. 

In 2018 – the year Sharp’s foundation donated to the IPR – the think tank gave £30,000 to News-Watch.

News-Watch’s coverage is almost exclusively targeted at the BBC, accusing it of bias against Brexit and Conservatives. In January 2018, it published ‘The Brussels Broadcasting Corporation’ which was heavily critical of the BBC – one of many publications and articles it published that year criticising the corporation.

In the report, News-Watch said it had “conducted around 40 separate reports into elements of the BBC’s output, including for the Centre for Policy Studies”.

Sharp sat on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), which calls itself Britain’s “leading centre-right think tank” – a claim Johnson and Rishi Sunak have endorsed. 

Other pieces on the News-Watch site at the time claimed that “the reality is that the BBC has a skewed agenda” on climate change, Brexit and other issues. Other reports – including one published jointly with a Tufton Street think tank – alleged that the BBC was highly partial and sat on the left of politics. 

One ‘study’ by the group claimed that the BBC over-cited left-wing think tanks – but the methodology described the free-market capitalist think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs as left-wing; alongside climate-sceptic group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, headed up by Thatcher’s former Chancellor Lord Lawson. 

In 2017 and 2018, IPR also gave the TaxPayers’ Alliance nearly £130,000 – making it the third-largest recipient of IPR funds after the CPS and Open Europe.

The following year, it gave the TaxPayers’ Alliance £180,000, accounting for its largest grant at 39% of its total gifts that year.

Between 2016 and 2019, the TaxPayers’ Alliance ran social media posts including: “Do you agree that the BBC licence fee should be abolished?” Many of its comments in the media in this time pushed its campaign to scrap the licence fee. 

Sharp also gave £42,400 directly to Robert Colville, co-author of the 2019 Conservative Manifesto, chair of the CPS, and editor-in-chief of the right-leaning publication CapX. 

Colvile told Byline Times: “Richard was a CPS Board member at the time and was deeply affected by the death of my wife. The money went into a trust to support my children as they grew up, and help ensure that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about education and living costs as a widower. It was an incredibly kind gesture on his part and I will always be extraordinarily grateful to him for it.”

He added that his work on the Conservative Manifesto was “purely voluntary” and that he took a leave of absence from the CPS to do it. “I was only brought in late in the process, during the campaign itself,” he added. “So I didn’t receive any money for doing so or any quid pro quo payments via an indirect route.”

The CPS has published several reports criticising the so-called bias at the BBC against Brexiters and the right.   

In the same time period, CapX published articles calling for abolition of the licence fee, with one headed “the licence fee model worked in 1946 – but it is now outdated and should be overhauled”. Several pieces also hit out at the BBC’s coverage on Russia. 

Byline Times columnist Peter York – co-author of The War Against The BBC with Professor Patrick Barwise – has charted many of the organisations undermining the BBC, including News-Watch. 

“I hadn’t realised Mr Sharp was so involved with organisations that are clearly hostile to the BBC,” he said. “Did the various organisations involved with scrutinising his appointment know all this or is it the first anyone’s seen of it? Did the BBC Board and senior management know all this? Not that they could’ve done anything about it.”

He added: “The issues relating to Richard Sharp’s appointment are not of the BBC’s making. They don’t appoint him – they have no say in it. The Government does: he was imposed on the BBC.”

The BBC did not respond to Byline Times’ request for comment.

Sharp is the subject of two investigations into allegations he helped Boris Johnson secure a loan of up to £800,000. Industry figures such as Jonathan Dimbleby and Baroness Patience Wheatcroft have called on him to resign, while Labour and the Scottish National Party have described his position as “increasingly untenable”.

A Labour source told Byline Times: “These reports raise further questions about how much pertinent information Richard Sharp disclosed to Parliament and to the BBC ahead of his appointment as BBC Chair.

“The Select Committee has already ruled that Sharp made significant errors of judgement when failing to declare his role in the facilitation of a loan to the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Tory cronyism is dragging down the BBC when we should be promoting it as the cornerstone of our creative economy.”

National Union of Journalist members working for the BBC believe Sharp must immediately resign, according to a snapshot poll carried out over the past week with just over 1,000 respondents.

Paul Siegert, the NUJ’s national broadcasting organiser, said Byline Times’ findings are “yet another reason which explains why our members say they no longer have faith in Richard Sharp to remain as Chairman of the BBC”.

“Impartiality is so important for everyone who works at the BBC and Richard Sharp can’t argue he is impartial,” he added. “The longer he stays in post, and the more stories like this come to light, then the more damage he is doing to the reputation of the BBC.”

On the ten year anniversary of Graham Brown’s exposure as a development facilitator for hire, Tories are still pushing “Build, build, build” regardless.

WHY?

At the beginning of the week over 150 residents protested against a Green Wedge housing estate in Seaton. 

After years of opposing building on this site, the Seaton Town Council has been persuaded to change its mind and approve [Owl’s phrase for this is “bounced”, as three members were absent] by District Tory Cllr Marcus Hartnell. 

Not only do local residents object en masse, but the Environment Agency also objects on the grounds of its inadequate Flood Risk Assessment.

A week is a long time in politics. 

By the end of the week the Seaton Town Council had agreed to reconsider the matter. 

Cllr Marcus Hartnell says: “Since the meeting … further information has been received from the Environment Agency (EA) concerning flood risk. This is of concern to me, and recognising the overwhelming consensus from those who attended the public meeting, and to ensure the response from Seaton Town Council is robust, I have put forward a motion that the planning application is reconsidered and debated at the Full Council meeting on 6th March…”

Read the saga below:

Tuesday

Over 150 residents protest against Green Wedge housing estate

seatonmatters.org

On Tuesday night I chaired a meeting in the Gateway of over 150 Seaton and Colyford residents who were virtually unanimous in their opposition to the proposal for up to 130 houses to be built on a site in the Green Wedge between the two communities, and very near to Seaton Wetlands.

The odd man out was Conservative councillor Marcus Hartnell, who had persuaded four members of Seaton Town Council’s planning committee (three others were absent) to approve the development in principle.

The meeting asked me to write to the Town Clerk protesting against this move, which is contrary to the Town Council’s longstanding policy of opposition to building on this site. The meeting also asked me to write to Cllr Eileen Wragg, chair of EDDC’s Planning Committee.

The meeting urged everyone to send individual objections to EDDC as soon as possible: the reference number is 22/2781/MOUT and you can LINK TO IT HERE.

Friday

Seaton Town Council to reconsider Green Wedge planning application – after public meeting’s request

seatonmatters.org 

After Tuesday’s public meeting attended by over 150 residents – which almost unanimously opposed application 22/2781/MOUT – on Thursday I wrote (as the meeting had asked me to) to the Town Mayor, Town Clerk and councillors asking the full Council to reconsider their planning committee’s support for the bid. I drew their attention to the Environment Agency’s objection on grounds of flood risk (see the text of my email below).

I didn’t get a reply but on Friday, the Council posted on the planning portal: “In light of comments submitted by the Environment Agency on 20 February the Town Council would like to reconsider the application. It is hoped that a meeting can be held on Monday 6 March and any comments could be submitted by the end of that week or the beginning of the following week.”

I also got an email from Cllr Marcus Hartnell saying: “Since the meeting … further information has been received from the Environment Agency (EA) concerning flood risk. This is of concern to me, and recognising the overwhelming consensus from those who attended the public meeting, and to ensure the response from Seaton Town Council is robust, I have put forward a motion that the planning application is reconsidered and debated at the Full Council meeting on 6th March. My motion was sent to the Town Clerk yesterday and is now confirmed to be included on the agenda.” 

THE MEETING ON 6th MARCH IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC – the agenda is still to be published.

HERE’S MY EMAIL:

Dear Amrik, Jules and councillors,

I write at the request of a public meeting about this development, held on Tuesday 21st February in the Gateway, which I chaired. The meeting of over 150 Seaton and Colyford residents was unanimous, apart from Cllr Marcus Hartnell, in opposing this development. 

The meeting expressed its disappointment that Seaton Town Council’s Planning Committee, attended by only four out of its seven members, had voted to recommend approving the development in principle (subject only to Highways concerns), despite strong opposition from the public. Our meeting was reminded by several former town councillors that the Town Council had consistently opposed applications for development on this site in the past, in line with the vast majority of local opinion as well as the adopted Local Plan. 

We feel that the Planning Committee did not fully consider the range of issues that are raised by this proposal. Indeed I am informed that apart from Cllr Hartnell no member actually spoke to the issues. The Committee was unaware, for example, that concerns about flooding due to the development, raised by local residents, have been reinforced by the Environment Agency’s objection to it on grounds of its inadequate Flood Risk Assessment.

As I recall previous proposals for this site (and other major developments), in view of their importance to the town and the strength of public feeling, have been considered by the full Town Council. I therefore assume that in line with usual practice, the Planning Committee’s minutes will be on the agenda of the next Town Council meeting for its consideration, before any response is submitted to EDDC. 

We request that the full Council then take that opportunity to revise the Town Council’s recommendation. I wish to notify you that I and other participants in Tuesday’s meeting intend to attend the Council to speak on this matter.

Please confirm that time will be provided in your next full Council for proper consideration of this matter which has aroused wide public concern.

Best regards,

Martin

But was he a lone wolf? – Owl

Chair of the East Devon Alliance, Martin Shaw, writes for the Herald.

www.midweekherald.co.uk 

Ten years ago this month, a journalist from the Daily Telegraph secretly recorded the Conservative councillor for Feniton, Graham Brown, boasting that he could obtain planning permission in return for a substantial payment. “If I can’t get planning, nobody will,” he claimed. “If I turn a green field into a housing estate and I’m earning a developer two or three millions, then I’m not doing it for peanuts.”

Brown was forced to resign and the Tory-controlled council washed their hands of him. However it was obvious that he couldn’t have been acting alone. Since he wasn’t on the planning committee at the time, his claims only stacked up if other councillors or officers were in on the act. Indeed Brown was chair of the East Devon Business Forum, a body that linked councillors with development interests, from which EDDC had to withdraw its support after he was exposed.

Brown’s disgrace made East Devon a national byword for dodgy dealings in local government. It also brought to a head the disquiet with planning in local communities. Thousands of people had protested in Sidmouth the previous autumn and there was a battle to save the Seaton-Colyford Green Wedge. In these circumstances a group of local activists set up the East Devon Alliance (EDA) – then a protest group, but now, a decade on, a key part of the new ruling coalition at EDDC, with its co-founder Paul Arnott leader of the council.

In 2013, even EDA thought that the Tory-run EDDC was an extreme case and didn’t actually call it “corrupt”. What a difference a decade makes.

In 2023, according to polling, the majority of voters think the whole Conservative Party is ‘institutionally corrupt’ and Transparency International, which measures corruption in different countries, has rated the UK as a country which has rapidly become more corrupt under the Tories.

Indeed Tory corruption is now so commonplace it’s difficult to keep track of. This week, it’s Nadhim Zahawi trying to breeze off the huge penalty he had to pay to the tax authorities for being ‘careless’ about millions of pounds of tax he owed. He thinks he’s hard done by and the fault lies with the media for exposing him (funnily enough, that was Graham Brown’s line back in 2013, too). Last week, it was the Chair of the BBC governors who got the job after he helped fix an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson. Obviously Johnson thought that was all above board.

Rishi Sunak reluctantly sacked Zahawi but his own record is hardly spotless. As Chancellor, he presided over the ‘Fast Lane’ which allowed Tory cronies priority access to Covid PPE contracts. It’s now been established that £15 billion was wasted in the PPE operation, money which could have been used to restore the NHS and pay the nurses properly.

Corruption, once accepted as a way of doing things, can be difficult to root out. When the East Devon Alliance set out, in the wake of the Brown scandal, to restore standards to our district’s local government, no one knew quite how it would be done. Serious work on reform could only begin in 2020 when Liberal Democrat and Green councillors joined EDA in a coalition to run EDDC. Local residents should not underestimate its achievements – it’s no small thing to turn things round after 45 years of one-party control.

Ending corruption in national politics will be a much bigger job. Some of our institutions are deeply contaminated – the House of Lords is stuffed with peers appointed because they have given hundreds of thousands to the Conservative Party. Powerful monied interests have got used to the idea that they can literally purchase influence at the highest levels. Yet with an election due in less than two years, we can start to prepare.

Add a little zest to your life with a slice of turnip.

Soon time to plant your seeds for an early summer crop.

This 3.19% increase can be compared to the 6% rise in the Police budget and 4.99% for County – Owl

The average East Devon household will have to fork out an extra £5 a year for the district council’s slice of their overall council tax bills.

East Devon Reporter eastdevonnews.co.uk 

The authority has agreed a 3.19 per cent increase it says will balance its budget, protect frontline services and ‘help with the inflationary pressures’.

Some of the cash will be used to provide extra support will also be given to the leisure sector.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) provides services including rubbish and recycling collection, maintaining parks and open spaces, and leisure centres.

EDDC takes seven pence in every pound from residents’ overall council tax bills.

The rest is made up of contributions to police and fire services and county, town and parish authorities.

Councillor Jack Rowland, EDDC portfolio holder for finance said: “Whilst any increase in the EDDC element of council tax is regrettable in the current inflationary period, the increase is 3.19 per cent and £5 per annum for the average Band D rate payer.

“That is less than a 10p per week increase and despite, in real terms, losing over £50million over the last decade in central government grants, this EDDC budget for 2023/24 is providing the required balanced budget required by law as well as preserving services.

“For 2023/24 the average Band D ratepayer will be paying £161.78 per annum to EDDC, which is equivalent to just over £3 per week for services such as the waste and recycling collections, the StreetScene service in maintaining many parks and open spaces, the contract with LED Community Leisure to operate the swimming pools, gymnasiums and other sport and leisure activities in the district as just a few examples of the services provided by EDDC.”

Breathtaking incompetence and failings by police allowed a gunman to kill five people during a mass shooting in Plymouth, victims’ families have said.

This was the headline from the BBC a couple of days ago.

Under the heading: Alison Hernandez and her thoughts on guns from 2017, Owl recalled how our Police and Crime Commissioner caused alarm by suggesting that members of the public who own guns could help defend rural areas against terror attacks. 

What sort of example was she setting?

With hindsight, it looks like this was the first example of the trivial and populist way in which she exercises her responsibilities, epitomised by her predilection for “selfies” at every trivial opportunity.

Yet she controls about 12% of your council tax, compared to 7% for the, arguably more visible, services provided by East Devon.

By far the biggest spender is County at around 72% under the beady eyes of our recent correspondent Cllr Phil Twiss, Cabinet Member for Finance, the rest covers Fire and parish services.

Here is what Tim wrote in his comment .yesterday:

I gather Ms Hernandez is calling for someone to be disciplined over the Keyham tragedy-but not her.

These 2017 comments gave us a great insight into what sort of Commissioner she might become. Sadly she was plainly ignorant in a number of areas that she should have mastered.

Her job is to support the police and fire service, to equip both with adequate staff and the resources needed to perform their duties.

Is it not common sense to have some knowledge of the police roles that one overseas, especially topical serious issues?

In relation to her giving consideration to Firearm Certificate Holders (FAC) perhaps having a role alongside the police response to terrorism, she demonstrated how dangerously little she knows about firearms law and police practices. Thankfully senior officers dismissed the notion-and far more gently than she deserved.

The Firearms Act ’68 is one of many Acts that lays down duties but does little or nothing to enable those duties to be supported with funding the appropriate resources. The Act, and to my mind this is one of its greatest failings, effectively requires a chief officer (or now a nominated deputy) to issue a FAC unless he/she can show it is inappropriate. It does not require the individual to prove he/she is an appropriate person . I think it’s time to reverse that onus from the police to the applicant.

When certificates are issued there are inevitably conditions attached as well as restrictions from other laws that may apply in certain circumstances. For example you cannot simply take a firearm anywhere to use it, its use will be limited to say a particular shooting club or specified farmland. Unless a FAC holder had an additional condition allowing him/her to use when assisting police (an absolute non-starter), to do what Ms Hernandez contemplates, and all other issues aside, it would in itself be a criminal offence resulting in a court hearing, likely conviction and seizure of the firearms held. That is a measure of how naïve she is on the subject.

Davison may not have been processed properly but we all know from history that people can change and quickly become dangerous. I was loosely connected with the Hungerford incident in 1987 when 16 innocents were killed by a man, Michael Ryan, who held firearms 100% lawfully under the law as applied at that time.

Managing the response was immensely challenging and I dread to think how much worse it would be if civvie armed FAC holders had also been present. And, like it or not, the police must consider the shooter and in GB terms, so very differently from that seen on US TV. The force sniper on that Hungerford occasion, now sadly no longer with us, had Ryan in his sights but didn’t shoot him. Asked why he gave a powerful reply revealing what an expert and remarkable man he was, ‘I am not an executioner. At the time he was in my sights but he was not a threat to anyone else”. Can you imagine any civvie FAC holder being so well-informed and so disciplined to properly assess and apply the law?

The Keyham case has made plain, again, the need for sufficient resources to apply the Act (as it stands today), and that such resources have not been available for many a year. Ms Hernandez must bear a good deal of responsibility for that.

The PCC says she has given more resources to the department but are we are not entitled to ask what additional resources she made available to the D&C FAC dept before Keyham?

Water companies often release illegal levels of a toxic pollutant into rivers in breaches that go undetected because of a flawed “self-monitoring” system, analysis for The Times suggests.

Rhys Blakely www.thetimes.co.uk 

The research indicates that the Environment Agency (EA) has told the companies to test the treated sewage they release into watercourses during the hours of the day when they are most likely to comply with their permits.

Outside the hours when testing happens, levels of ammonia in the treated sewage, which can wreck river ecosystems, often appear to exceed legal limits.

The findings raise serious doubts over how the EA has directed water companies to monitor their own performance. They also raise the possibility that households are being overcharged because Ofwat, the water regulator, is using flawed pollution data provided by the companies when it carries out price reviews that control consumer bills.

The Times has launched the Clean It Up campaign to press for more action on cleaner rivers, lakes and beaches. It calls for water companies to be stripped of self-monitoring powers and the job handed to a beefed-up EA.

Under what is known as operator self monitoring (OSM), companies are asked to test their own treated sewage. They typically take samples from treatment works either 12 or 24 times a year. They test for a variety of pollutants and report the results to the EA, which passes the information to Ofwat.

The analysis focuses on ammonia, which can fuel algal blooms that choke river wildlife. Official guidance from the EA says that most OSM samples should be taken between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday, with one in every 12 samples taken outside of these “office hours”. The readings generated by the OSM scheme suggest that more than 97 per cent of treatment works comply with their permits.

However, another set of testing data generated for internal company use — not reported to the EA and not usually made public — gives a much more detailed picture of how the plants are performing, by collecting information on ammonia levels in treated sewage every 15 minutes around the clock.

These “continuous’ readings were obtained for more than 500 treatment works, operated by six companies, by the campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (Wasp) using freedom of information laws.

The more detailed data shows that ammonia levels often dip to their lowest concentrations between about 8am and 2pm — which coincides with when the vast majority of OSM samples are taken. Outside of this testing window, ammonia concentrations are often far higher.

The OSM data suggests that less than 3 per cent of treatment works break their permits for ammonia. By contrast, the continuous data suggests that 105 out of the 531 sewage works included in the analysis — about 20 per cent of them — are in breach.

For example, in 2020 OSM samples were taken from the Chelmsford sewage works, which is run by Anglian Water, only between about 10am and 2pm. The more detailed continuous monitoring data suggests that ammonia levels often breached the permitted levels outside of this window.

The analysis is the latest to be produced by Professor Peter Hammond, of Wasp. He has previously used water company data to detect thousands of spills of untreated sewage, including many that were illegal and not picked up by the EA.

Hammond said: “If rivers are to return to at least good chemical status and customers are to pay fair charges, then Defra must stop operator self-monitoring in the water industry and replace it with well-funded, technically savvy and independent regulation.”

Penny Gane, the head of practice at Fish Legal, an advocacy group, said: “The reality is that a water company employee taking a final effluent sample once a month during a small window does not give a full picture of what’s going on at a treatment works.

“While the water companies may technically be compliant with OSM conditions in their permits, they miss peak usage times in the morning and evening when everyone is flushing their toilets, washing their clothes and showering. Breaches can go undetected by the regulator with the current approach.”

Data was supplied by Wessex Water, Thames Water, Southern Water, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water and Welsh Water. The companies stressed that they carry out their OSM testing in line with government instructions. They strongly denied deliberately timing samples to meet their permits.

A spokesman for Water UK, which represents water companies, said: “Testing regimes are approved by the Environment Agency. Crucially, this includes the timing and frequency of samples and the rules about how they should be taken.

“In addition, water company sampling teams do not have access to the sampling programmes so they physically cannot advise operational teams of when samples are going to be taken.”

An Environment Agency spokesman said: “The Operator Self-Monitoring approach is independently accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service – and practically it is only water companies that can do this level of monitoring. Under the ‘polluter pays’ principle they should also be the ones paying for it. Many other industries use similar self-monitoring, including oil and gas and the chemicals industry.

“This is not the only way we check that water companies are complying with their permits — we also do our own monitoring and on-site inspections, both announced and unannounced.”

Wessex Water took issue with Hammond’s analysis, saying that it was not possible to make “a meaningful comparison” between the data from continuous monitoring and the OSM data. In response, Hammond pointed out that OSM readings for ammonia levels at Wessex treatment plants looked at in his analysis closely match those from continuous monitoring.

Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, said: “Peter Hammond’s work is excellent. The fact that it takes a retired mathematics academic to reveal what’s going on is itself a damning indictment of what the EA and the water companies have been up to. Worse still is the fact that companies like Severn Trent refused to release the data to Peter that others at least provided. No one seems to want to take responsibility. No heads have rolled.

“Public trust is now so low that only a transparent publicly available data monitoring system will do. Defra and the EA and the water companies should finally make the shift from the analogue self-reporting farce to a 21st-century digital real-time monitoring of the sad state of our rivers.”

Severn Trent Water, South West Water and United Utilities declined the freedom of information request and withheld data.

The Times is demanding faster action to improve the country’s waterways. Find out more about the Clean It Up campaign.

What’s the water like in your area?

Is there a story that we need to cover? Tell us about the lakes, rivers and beaches near you.

At the full council meeting on Wednesday the recommendation from cabinet was passed in what looked to Owl to be a unanimous decision but may more accurately be described as “nem con”. [Agenda item 10]

Cllr Eleanor Rylance declared an interest and withdrew from the chamber before the agenda item. The Tories had pointedly abstained from the vote on the budget under then previous agenda item.

Is that so they can campaign that Tories didn’t vote for tax increases? Like Simon Jupp’s claim: “I didn’t vote to pollute our water”

Re: Council Tax Charges for Second Homes & Empty Properties

The recommendation agreed was to implement the following upon the legislative provisions coming into force:

 a) The application of a premium of 100% for all dwellings which are unoccupied and substantially unfurnished (empty dwellings) after a period of one year rather than the current 2 with effect from 1st April 2024;

 b) The application of a premium of 100% for all dwellings which are unoccupied but substantially furnished (second homes) with effect from 1st April 2024; and 

c) That the Service Lead for Revenues, Benefits, Corporate Customer Access is given delegated powers to implement the policy in line with the Council’s requirements and having regard to any guidance given by the Secretary of State. 

d) That a letter is written to our local MPs to ensure their support for the bill so it receives royal assent prior to April 2023. To communicate to all other councils in Devon to encourage a unified Devon policy on the increase in rates for empty or second homes.

People have been asked to consider wearing face masks once again following a sharp rise in Covid-19 rates. Following a national trend, Plymouth has also seen a nearly 25 percent increase of people who have reported testing positive with the virus.

Shannon Brown www.plymouthherald.co.uk

This is the fourth week in a row hospital admission rates have increased for the virus, rising to an average of 9.4 admissions per 100,000 people in the week ending February 19, up from 7.9 per 100,000 in the previous week, according to NHS data. A total of 8,015 people were in hospital in England on February 22 who had tested positive for Covid-19, up 11% on the previous week and the highest since January 10.

Plymouth has seen an increase of 24.2 percent in the week ending February 18, according to the government’s coronavirus tracker. Over the seven days last week, 195 people in the city reported testing positive for the virus- an increase 38 on the previous week – with a case rate per 100,000 people in the city is 74.2.

Recent national rates of Covid hospitalisation over Christmas 2022 peaked at 11.8 per 100,000. 9,535 people were in hospital will the virus on December 29. Experts at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have asked people to reconsider wearing face masks to protect against airborne infection.

Across Devon, there are currently around 479 total Covid cases as of the week ending February 18. This is an increase of 16, or 3.5 percent. Per 100,000 residents in the county, there is an average of 59.1 new cases every week – Plymouth average rate is significantly higher.

Christmas Covid cases was one of the factors adding extra pressure on the NHS this winter, along with a sharp increase in cases of flu, a bed shortage, and staff sickness. Flu levels have fallen since early January, with an average of 638 flu patients in hospital beds each day last week, down from 738 over the previous week, and significantly reduced from the 5,441 people in hospital at the start of the year.

However, this is still well above the average of 29 patients at the same point last year. Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at the UK Health Security Agency, said: “Covid-19 and flu are still in circulation. Hospital admission rates for Covid-19 are continuing to increase, particularly among those aged 65 and over.

“Although flu case rates remain relatively low, we have also seen a rise in hospital admission rates among the over-85s, who are at greater risk of severe illness. Simple actions can make a big difference in reducing the spread of these viruses.

“You can help by regularly washing your hands or staying at home and avoiding vulnerable people if you are unwell. If you do have to leave the house, please consider wearing a face covering, which can help prevent you passing respiratory viruses on.”

Owl thinks many Tories will see the writing on the wall and claim to be “Independent” to try to save their skins in May, 

Cllr Mike Howe says he still gives his full backing to East Devon MP Simon Jupp. 

Remember: A blue rose by any other name would smell as stinky! (Ben Ingham led a so called “Independent” EDDC administration when, in reality, he was just a puppet on a string to the Tories, hoodwinking a number of quite reasonable independent minded councillors along the way.)

Or maybe Mike Howe has just had his fill of turnip rations from Tory group leader Cllr Philip Skinner. – Owl

Rob Kershaw www.devonlive.com

An East Devon councillor has quit the Conservative group to sit as an independent after growing tired with the party’s stance on some issues. Cllr Mike Howe (Independent, Clyst Valley) said he has been considering the move for a while, but a full council meeting on Wednesday [22 February] was the final straw.has had his fil

Cllr Howe sat on the opposite side of the room to his now former Tory colleagues. He vocally disagreed with them on a number of points.

“I’ve just had enough. I’m just worn out and last night’s full council just pushed me over the edge,” he said. “I thought I need to be a bit more distant and a bit more independent and do what I can for my ward and the district as a whole. And I feel the best place to do that is not in the Conservative Party locally. I think the party was wrong from start to finish last night, and it just gets to the point where you can’t defend the indefensible.”

While no longer a Conservative on council level, Cllr Howe still gives his full backing to East Devon MP Simon Jupp. Conservative leader Cllr Philip Skinner (Tale Vale) said he respected Cllr Howe’s decision to part ways with the group.

“Councillors obviously have their views on certain issues,” he said. “And they’ve got to make the decisions they take on their own merit. It’s just one of those things I guess, where people are in their lives, the views they have on different issues.

“We’ve just got to respect other peoples’ viewpoints of people and decisions they make in life, and the consequences to the actions and the decisions that they make are their own.”

Cllr Howe’s decision comes less than three months before the next election in May.

His decision leaves the composition of the council with 21 Conservatives, 16 Independents, 12 from the East Devon Alliance, 7 Liberal Democrats, 2 Greens and 1 Labour councillor. There is also one seat vacant as former Labour councillor Paul Millar, who represented the Exmouth Halsdon ward, is no longer listed as being a member of the council.

Boris Johnson’s legal defence fees for the upcoming Partygate, covered by the taxpayer, are expected to soar again as the government prepares to extend the contract.

Adam Forrest www.independent.co.uk

The taxpayer is already set to contribute more than £222,000 in legal fees for the former PM as he faces a grilling over whether he lied to parliament on Covid parties.

But the government contract with legal firm is to be renewed again before expiring 28 February, upping the bill by another five-figure sum, according to The Guardian.

It comes as it emerged investigating MPs on the privilege committee made a “site visit” to No 10 to see where rule-breaking parties were held during the pandemic.

The committee led by senior Labour MP Harriet Harman wanted to get a sense of the layout in the building to better understand how the gatherings happened, ITV reported.

MPs have not yet set a date for the public hearings for the Partygate, which is trying to establish whether Mr Johnson misled the Commons about what he knew of illicit gatherings.

But the televised sessions are expected to begin sometime in March. Mr Johnson denies misleading MPs – recently telling his staunch ally Nadine Dorries that anyone who suspects he deliberately covered up lockdown parties was “out of their mind”.

The decision to give so much taxpayers’ money to cover Mr Johnson’s legal fees for the is being looked into by officials at the National Audit Office (NAO).

The NAO has not yet decided to launch a formal investigation, but a letter last month revealed one of the spending watchdog’s top officials will speak to the Cabinet Office about the matter.

Solicitors firm Peters and Peters was awarded a contract worth £129,700 in August to provide Mr Johnson with advice during the investigation. An extension of the contract, costing another £90,000, was approved in December.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said voters “will be justly outraged at the prospect of having to foot the bill yet again for Boris Johnson’s Partygate defence fund”, adding: “Rishi Sunak is showing once again that he’s too weak to put a stop to it.”

Mr Johnson has been accused of “treachery” after intervening on the Northern Ireland Protocol row and other issues, with ex-Tory Chancellor George Osborne claiming the ex-PM wants to “bring down” Mr Sunak and return to No 10.

The former Tory leader will “100 per cent” condemn any agreement reached in the coming days if he feels it means closer alignment with the EU, allies have said. Mr Johnson has made known that dropping the unilateral protocol bill would be a “great mistake”.

He is one of 57 Tory MPs who has signed a letter urging Mr Sunak to boost nuclear energy capacity. He and the group want to see two more large-scale projects before the next general election.

Up to 30 new homes will be built on the outskirts of Topsham, despite concerns about road safety. Heritage Developments’ outline application for a green field site along Newcourt Road was approved by Exeter City Council’s planning committee on Monday, which will see the Topsham Gap get even smaller.

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com 

35 per cent of the properties will be classed as ‘affordable,’ while the meeting was told the homes will be ‘net zero.’ This includes triple glazing throughout, air source heat pumps, solar panels and electric car charging points.

Located between the M5 and the Avocet railway line, Newcourt Road is currently the location of a number of new developments and recently-granted planning applications, leading local resident Ben Fitzpatrick to raise concerns about safety.

“Newcourt Road is a narrow, single track, country-style lane, with extremely restricted blind corners,” he said. “Worse than this – [there are] no footways along the majority of it, including at the worst end.”

Mr Fitzpatrick said the road was “dangerous” and “clogged at peak times.” He criticised the use of 2018 traffic data – before the recent housing developments were built – to help to assess road safety.

Councillors were told another survey had been carried out by an objector, showing significantly higher levels of traffic along the road, less than a week before the meeting. It came with a request to defer the application.

However, an officer for Devon County Council, which concluded it was “satisfied that safe and suitable access can be achieved to the site,” said the 2018 traffic survey was “perfectly applicable” given it had “taken into account future developments.”

Applicant David Lovell, from Heritage Developments, questioned the veracity of the objector’s survey, adding: “After allowing for this development and all other existing planning permissions, traffic movements on Newcourt Road will still be less than half the maximum threshold set out in national guidance.”

But he committed to adding pavements around the front of the site “to futureproof Newcourt Road for any future further developments.”

Mr Lovell also reminded councillors that the properties will be net zero homes and said he had no problem with including a play park in the development’s open space.

Council leader Phil Bialyk (Labour, Exwick) suggested the principle of housing at the location was broadly accepted, but called on the county council to “step up” and put in a “proper traffic management plan” as a condition for outline planning approval. However, he was told this was outside of the committee’s powers.

Councillor Rob Hannaford (Labour, St Thomas) said he would raise the issue of road safety at a future meeting of the Exeter highways and traffic orders committee (HATOC), on which he also sits.

Backing the scheme, Cllr Hannaford concluded: “We have a housing shortage. We need more housing across the board. These are family homes and there’s good provision of affordable and social housing.”

The application was approved by 11 votes to three. A final stage ‘reserved matters’ application containing the finer details will be brought back to the committee at a later date.

Therese Coffey Roasted For Saying ‘Cherish’ Turnips, Forget Tomatoes

Graeme Demianyk www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Twitter has been digging for jokes after the environment secretary suggested eating turnips could help avoid the UK’s fruit and vegetable shortages.

Supermarkets have been rationing fresh produce after bad weather in north Africa and southern Europe has disrupted the UK’s supply chain (some, however, are insisting Brexit is to blame too).

Speaking to MPs in the commons, Therese Coffey, the minister in charge of food supplies, insisted that ongoing shortages will be a temporary issue that should be resolved in two to four weeks.

The Tory MP added the UK should “cherish the specialisms” it has and a “lot of people would be eating turnips right now” under a seasonal food model – rather than thinking about lettuce, tomatoes and similar fresh food.

It quickly prompted a pile-on …(see www.huffingtonpost.co.uk)

Mirror

Daily Star

.

….after rejecting a new business plan for their controversial development company.

“Conservative councillors seem hell bent on investing more taxpayers’ money on this vanity project.” LibDem spokesperson

Mid Devon is another council facing problems from controversial property development.

[Mid Devon District Council – No overall control since 1999, Conservative led for a decade until 2019, subsequent “Indy” Leader Bob Deed until ousted this week].

The council appears simultaneously to have reject two sources of revenue: raising car parking charges and a new business plan for their controversial development company –  3 Rivers Development Ltd (3RDL). Council members have also ousted their Leader, Bob Deed.  

3RDL is another of those controversial investment schemes see: “A cautionary tale from Mid Devon – Council dabbles in investment”. Here are some selected quotes from this 2020 post.

Following an explanation from Deputy Chief Executive, Andrew Jarratt on the origins and aims of the 3Rivers project, Leader of the Council, Bob Deed was reported as saying:

“It was time to “lift the veil” on the “considerable mystery around the performance of 3RDL and the oversight of the company by the responsible officers at the Council.”

He said: “You have heard in Mr Jarrett’s response that 3RDL has already returned significant sums to the Council over the past two years and delivered its only completed scheme to date on time at its level of profit.

“This is opaque speak in that, not one penny has been returned to the Council by 3RDL over the past two years, every penny of interest due from 3RDL to the Council has had to be lent by the Council to 3RDL and remains outstanding within its total loan figure due to the Council.”

LibDems said in February:

“Conservative councillors seem hell bent on investing more taxpayers’ money on this vanity project. The Liberal Democrats believe external expertise needs to be brought in to review the company and to find a solution that does not leave the local council taxpayers ‘picking up the tab’.

 Mid Devon budget chaos as parking charge hike refused and 3Rivers plan rejected

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com

Mid Devon urgently needs to find more than half a million pounds for its new budget after councillors rejected two sources of income.

At a lengthy and eventful full district council meeting on Wednesday [22 February], a new business plan for the authority’s controversial housing development company, 3Rivers, was rejected.

The expected interest generated from loans to the company – whose future is now in serious doubt – is therefore missing from the budget, meaning the council is £500,000 short, according to deputy chief executive Andrew Jarrett.

It is also short of an additional £120,000 of revenue after members paused planned hikes to car parking charges, following a public outcry. Some charges, including annual allocated permits, were planned to more than double.

As a result of the decisions and the financial implications, councillors decided not to vote on the proposed 2023/24 budget. Some also didn’t want to because the budget papers had been submitted without five working days’ notice.

An emergency meeting will now be scheduled, in which savings or cuts totalling around £620,000 will need to be agreed. Councils must legally set balanced budgets by Saturday 11 March.

However, councillors did vote to put up council tax by 2.99 per cent – something that has to be agreed by the end of this month so that bills can go to residents in time. The rise is equivalent to an extra £6.56 per year for a band D property, taking their annual contributions to Mid Devon up to £225.40.

Together with other increases to Devon County Council, fire, police, and town and parish councils, band D households will be paying out £2,295.32 next year – an increase of £109.73. Councillors now quickly need to finalise what taxpayers will be paying for in Mid Devon over the year ahead.

Difficult to sort the “good-uns” from the “bad-uns” in this complicated story of an “Indy”/Tory administration falling apart, with serious consequences explained in a companion post as they grapple with legacy problems.

Reminds Owl of the infamous Ingham (LINO) regime in East Devon [Leader in name only].

See, for example, this 2020 extract from the LibDems Mid Devon Council Leader ‘acting like the Sun King!’

Liberal Democrat Councillor Alex White commented, “As Liberal Democrats we are very proud to have forged a consensus with Independent and Green Councillors that in the last two years has made the Council more responsive to the needs of the local community. We unwisely thought Bob Deed, who had quit the Tory Group, shared our principles, but it looks like he has reverted to type.”

Deed, who has been heavily involved in promoting the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan, replaced the four Liberal Democrat Councillors with his former Conservative colleagues in a move seen to be aimed at reversing the Council Cabinet decision to oppose GESP.

Mid Devon District Council has a new leader

Ollie Heptinstall www.devonlive.com

Mid Devon District Council has a new council leader. It follows the resignation of the previous leader following a tumultuous meeting on Wednesday night.

Ahead of the meeting, Cllr Bob Deed, the Independent leader of the council, had been facing calls to resign. A motion had been put forward by Tory group leader – and Cllr Deed’s former deputy – Cllr Clive Eginton – calling for his resignation.

Mid Devon’s political leadership has been in turmoil after the Conservative members of Cllr Deed’s Independent-Tory cabinet left in a dispute over the authority’s controversial 3Rivers property development company. Cllr Deed said he was going to appoint the necessary replacement cabinet members ahead of the meeting, but soon after it began news broke that he had resigned.

The Conservatives tried to get Cllr Eginton appointed as the new council leader, but this failed to receive a majority of votes. A subsequent vote to appoint Independent councillor Barry Warren, who represents the Lower Culm ward, and who is a prominent voice on the council’s scrutiny and planning committees, was then passed successfully.

The former police officer is only likely to serve as leader until May’s council elections, telling colleagues after his appointment: “I am purely here as a caretaker until the next election.”

But it is likely to be a busy two-and-a-half months. Mid Devon still needs to agree a balanced budget for 2023/24 in the coming days and Cllr Warren will need to quickly appoint a new cabinet.

“There will just be some urgent matters to deal with,” he said. “But if somebody is expecting myself or my cabinet to come up with some earth-shattering new initiative or something, there won’t be. It’ll be very much trying to keep going what’s already going and tweaking what needs doing. Until I’ve talked to various officers, I haven’t got a clue where we start.”

Simon Jupp straining to get answers.

But the answers to his questions are “unilluminating”, in fact one might call them rather bog standard. – Owl

www.theyworkforyou.com

Simon Jupp Conservative, East Devon

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the reporting of storm overflows in real time will be (a) consistent, (b) transparent, (c) accessible and (d) readily understood by the public.

Rebecca Pow The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Environment Act places new monitoring duties on the water industry to significantly improve transparency. It requires companies to make discharge data available in near real time to the public and to monitor water quality upstream and downstream of their assets.

More weasel words – Owl

The water regulator for England and Wales has weakened its language around how utility companies spill sewage pollution in future, prompting claims it is toothless.

Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor www.thetimes.co.uk

Ofwat has begun drafting standards for water companies governing how they protect the environment and how they perform between 2025 and 2030.

These “performance commitments” include definitions on storm overflows, which act as emergency valves for the sewage network during heavy rainfall and spill untreated sewage into rivers and seas. Companies are permitted to dump sewage this way to prevent it backing up into homes, but there has been public outrage at the number of spills. There were 372,000 spills in 2021.

In Ofwat’s definition of storm overflows, the original version said that reducing spills from them “helps to ensure that storm overflows are used by exception, rather than as a norm”. However, in an amended version published in December, the reference has been removed.

Such language is important because the use of storm overflows to spill sewage is the norm today by design, but has become seen as increasingly unacceptable. The government has set companies targets to curb them that will cost an estimated £56 billion.

The original Ofwat text also included a statement that “fewer and less frequent discharges” would help public health and the environment. This language is cut in the amended version.

The total number of storm overflow spills grew from about 13,000 in 2016 to about 404,000 in 2020, mirroring an increase in monitoring. It fell about 8 per cent in 2021, but whether that decrease continued last year will not be known until late next month when new figures are released.

In the meantime campaigners have identified 143 occasions between October 2021 and September last year when “dry spills” occurred. Companies are permitted to discharge untreated sewage during heavy rainfall, but not when conditions are dry.

Although highly visible, storm overflow spills are not the biggest source of pollution from water companies: a greater contribution comes from their sewage treatment works. Another Ofwat document, on river water quality related to phosphorus pollution from sewage treatment works and farms, dropped a passage on the benefits of curbing the pollutant.

The original text spoke of “encouraging water companies to limit adverse impacts on the water environment and demonstrate how they are contributing to tangible progress towards good ecological status of water bodies as part of their statutory functions”. The sentence was struck out in the version published in December.

Meanwhile, a document on flooding on private properties and land outside water companies’ networks, caused by sewers run by the companies, cut the suggestion that reducing the floods also curbed “negative social impacts”.

Ofwat said it expected the language of the definitions to be updated in April, reflecting feedback from stakeholders. The regulator added that it did not expect the December changes to affect any targets it set for water companies from 2025 to 2030.

Labour claimed that the edits showed Ofwat was toothless. “Our lakes, rivers and sea have been turned into an open sewer and the water regulator has been caught red-handed rewriting the rules given to water companies,” Jim McMahon, the shadow environment secretary, said. “The Conservatives have given the green light to further sewage dumping, and tried to minimise its impact on communities and local businesses dependent on tourism and leisure.”

The Times recently launched Clean It Up, a campaign calling for more robust regulation of the water sector and faster investment tackling storm overflow spills.

In an apparent nod to the campaign, the outgoing head of the other main regulator for the water sector in England, the Environment Agency, this week said that water pollution had garnered “huge media attention, particularly at the moment”.

Sir James Bevan, in a speech at the World Water-Tech Innovation Summit, conceded that progress on improving the water quality of rivers had slowed in recent years and even stopped in some cases.

However, he insisted progress was being made and argued some discussion of the issue had not been grounded in reality. “All I would say is let’s have this debate on the basis of the facts not assertions — and there are some wild assertions, myths and outright untruths flying around,” he said.

Plans to create hundreds of new jobs in two East Devon towns have been announced by the district council regardless of its failed bid to secure £11million government funding.

How many times has the government turned its back on Axminster?

Neil Parish always seemed preoccupied with “other interests”.

Remember this at the next election. – Owl

East Devon Reporter eastdevonnews.co.uk

East Devon District Council (EDDC) has revealed its ‘disappointment’ at a failed funding bid for Levelling Up cash for the Axe Valley, but vowed to forge ahead with some of its smaller plans to build new employment sites in Seaton and Axminster.

Later this year the council will report on the ‘viability’ of three new work sites in Colyford Road and Harepath Road, in Seaton, and Cloakham Lawns, Axminster, with the aim of developing around 3,000 square metres of employment space, creating up to 140 jobs for the local community and district.

In the summer EDDC will decide if the council will sell the sites, or if the authority will control running the workspaces.

EDDC said the Levelling Up funding hit has prompted the council to review its phase one plans of the £7million Seaton Seafront Enhancement project, in a bid to reduce costs.

It said it could not commit to working on the project in the next financial year.

An EDDC spokesperson said: “The first phase of the Seaton Seafront Enhancement project was set to cost nearly £7million.

“This included plans to create a bigger, better and more attractive outdoor space, including cafes, which can be enjoyed by locals and tourists alike near the roundabout close to Fisherman’s Gap.

“The council hopes to review phase one, and how the cost can be reduced although cannot commit to working on this in the next financial year.”

They added: “Following cabinet approval, EDDC is also now in the process of selecting a marketing agent for the Seaton Moridunum site, the Esplanade.

“This is the former toilet block with ramps either side and viewing platform above.

“There is an opportunity for the site to be transformed into a café or other leisure related facility.”

EDDC said it was waiting to receive feedback from the Government Department of Levelling Up Homes and Communities on its failed bid, to help with future applications.

Councillor Paul Hayward, EDDC portfolio holder for economy and assets, said: “Despite the disappointing outcome of the Levelling Up Fund, which was announced in January, we are still keen to make progress with some of the projects included.

He added: “While the council will progress with the marketing of the Seaton Moridunum site on the seafront, unfortunately, without the assistance of Government funding, the council is limited in what it can do at this time with the Seaton Seafront Enhancement project as a whole and a further review of this project is necessary.”

The Westminster Hall debate, chaired by Simon Jupp, rescheduled form Zelenskyy’s visit will now take place at 2.30 tuesday 28 February.

It will be recorded in Hansard and there may be a live video feed.

“I’m from Devon, I live near the sea in Sidmouth, and I love where we live…..I voted for a crackdown on sewage spills.” – Simon Jupp

In October 2021 Johnson’s Conservative government, with the votes of Simon Jupp and Neil Parish, succeeded in voting down a Lords amendment designed to stop private water companies from dumping raw sewage into the UK’s waterways. The amendment would have placed a legal duty on companies “to make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.“

In November 2021 what Simon voted for was a watered down version which changed a legal duty into a nebulous progressive aim of a “reduction of adverse impact of storm overflows’ and make it enforceable under a different Act.

In December 2022 the Government announced abandoning the principle of a legal target for river health, and postponing a deadline for agricultural run-off reduction by three years (from 2037 to 2040).

The government has also promised a new “plan for water” this year, and that 160 sewage treatment works will be upgraded by 2028 to cut phosphorus pollution being dumped in to rivers. Campaigners said, however, that the promises fall far short of a blueprint to clean up the country’s waterways.

Ashley Smith of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, an Oxfordshire-based group, noted that there are more than 5,200 sewage treatment works in England.

“We estimate at least 2,000 combined sewer overflows are dumping too often,” he said. “This plan does nothing to stop pollution from being profitable.”  www.thetimes.co.uk