Email your representative

Dear [MP name],

Rivers in our country are in a desperate state, choked by a cocktail of sewage, chemicals, and plastics, and heavily impacted by physical modification and artificial barriers. Not one UK river achieves a clean bill of health according to The Rivers Trust’s State of Our Rivers Report 2024. Despite this fact, the Government is now considering reneging on its commitment to the Water Restoration Fund, which ring-fenced water company fines for projects restoring our rivers and their catchments.

I urge you, as my elected representative, to stand up for our waterways and call on Government to formalise this Fund in the Water (Special Measures) Bill when it is debated in Parliament on Tuesday 28th January 2025.

The Water Restoration Fund is a positive scheme, roundly welcomed by the public, environmental groups and cross-party politicians. The Fund embodies the polluter pays principle by ensuring that water companies foot the bill to clean up the damage they cause. While implementation of the Fund has been slow, the principle of it remains exactly right, but now the Government is considering ditching it altogether.

Without the Water Restoration Fund, water company fines will disappear into the Treasury, leaving our rivers and their surrounding environments without the help they so desperately need. Just in the last couple of weeks, nature charities wrote to the Environment Secretary Steve Reed to warn against discontinuing the Fund, which would be a major setback in restoring our freshwaters to good health.

Now, you have the chance to use your voice in Parliament and call on Government to formalise the Fund in their Water (Special Measures) Bill, so that our rivers get the help they need to put them on the road to recovery.

You can find more information in advance of Report Stage in this briefing from Wildlife and Countryside Link.

[Include and personalise as required: As one of your constituents, I would like to hear what you intend to do regarding our waterways by email or letter. My home address for correspondence is ....]

Yours sincerely,

[Name of sender]