The Marine Conservation Society says it is ‘delighted’ to see a new consultation launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), just weeks before a High Court hearing in which the charity seeks to compel the UK Government to reduce sewage discharge into England’s coastal waters.
MCS is pursuing legal action to force changes into the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, after investigations found that unacceptable levels of raw sewage are being discharged into British waterways, including near beaches and seafood farms.
The sewage is discharged through the sewer network’s storm overflows, which are designed to prevent sewage from being distributed through towns and cities during flooding events.
A recent report, however, found that undiluted sewage was also being regularly discharged through the network’s emergency overflow channels, which are intended to be used, as the name suggests, for emergencies only.
At present, the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan gives water companies an extraordinarily lengthy 27 years to improve England’s overflow system to reduce excessive discharge, and does not include estuaries or coastal waters. 
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Defra has now launched a six-week consultation to expand the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to cover coastal and estuarine waters.  
‘We’re thrilled that just weeks before we are due to be heard in the High Court, the Government has announced this consultation,’ said Sandy Luk, Chief Executive at the Marine Conservation Society. ‘It’s an incredibly positive result for the ocean. We now expect the Government to produce a Plan that will cover all coastal waters and estuaries, and that it will treat all marine protected areas as high-priority sites needing more urgent action.     
‘There is a massive public expectation that the Government will listen and act to ensure clean and healthy seas, for wildlife and people. We’re willing to do everything possible to work with the Government on this, to make sure sewage dumping becomes a thing of the past.’
 The inclusion of coastal and estuary waters is just one of the grounds being put forward in the Good Law Project-funded case being brought by MCS and its co-claimants, Richard Haward’s Oysters, and surfer and activist, Hugo Tagholm.
The charity says that it intends to focus on the ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ – a law which has been in use since the 13th Century which says that the state ‘has a fiduciary duty to safeguard vital natural resources and hold them in trust for the benefit of both current and future generations.’
‘We’ll be continuing with the case on the other grounds to ensure that the Government delivers on everyone’s right to clean seas,’ said Luk. ‘If successful, this win could be ground-breaking for marine protection, for people and wildlife, as it could help to establish a much stronger duty of Government to act to prevent coastal pollution, including reducing untreated sewage from Stormwater Discharges.’
‘The pressure from our legal challenge has pushed Defra to consult on expanding its storm overflows plan to include protections for our coastal and estuarine waters,’ said Emma Dearnaley, Legal Director at the Good Law Project.
‘This is a really positive step forward in the lead-up to our High Court hearing where we hope to revive the Public Trust Doctrine and force the Government to take further action to hold water companies to account over the sewage crisis devastating our rivers and seas.’
The Defra survey, which is open to all members of the public, can be found on the Defra consultation page – entries will be accepted until 24 July 2023
The court case is due to be heard in the High Court on 4 – 6 July 2023.
