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Legal challenge over plans to relax sewage laws for housebuilders in England (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The government is facing a legal challenge over plans to permit housebuilders in England to allow sewage pollution “through the back door”.

The campaign group Wild Justice, along with the law firm Leigh Day, have submitted plans for a judicial review over what they term an “unlawful attempt to use guidance to introduce a change that was defeated in the House of Lords last year”.

Currently, in sensitive areas such as the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, housebuilders have to prevent extra sewage going into waterways, either by updating infrastructure or by buying biodiversity credits, which improve the local natural area and counteract the extra pollution. The regulations were first enacted by the EU in an attempt to prevent damaging buildups of algae and other plants that can choke off aquatic life.

Last year, the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, proposed an amendment to the levelling up and regeneration bill, which would strike the directive from the statute book. This would have allowed developers to ignore the rules.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fuck me, the Tories are just trying to smash up everything they can on the way out.

Hey, England. Remember when we cowed the King into signing the Magna Carta, and that motherfucker was so scared of us he didn't even try to fight? The fuck happened?

(Okay, I know that's a very loose interpretation of events, I don't need a history lesson, but dammit the French have a better track record of keeping their leaders in line and that's just embarrassing)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The king signed Magna Carta because his aristocracy was against him. Your regular peasant was eating shit meanwhile.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Pretty sure I said I know that wasn't the way things really went and I don't need a history lesson 😋 I was taking creative license to inspire the masses, because real examples are pretty thin on the ground. If you have some, please by all means share with the rest of us and I'll update my Rolodex of historical references.

All jokes aside, I'm operating off half-remembered secondary school lessons from several decades ago so I'm sure there's a lot of events I'm missing!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

To paraphrase the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, they are no more capable of managing the affairs of this nation than they are of running a brothel.

[–] snota 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How is it so difficult to understand that commercial quantities of shit released anywhere is a bad idea?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I still think a law that deposits equal amounts of sewage in executive's living rooms would have the desired effect.

"Thames water dumped 1 million liters of raw sewage into the sea". Uh-oh, somebody's going to need that second home now!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Now, the government has been accused of trying to bring it back by stealth by publishing a new notice, which says that planning authorities have to presume that water companies have upgraded sewage infrastructure to improve pollution after 1 April 2030, even if they have not.

Ricardo Gama, a solicitor with Leigh Day, said: “After a huge outcry from environmental groups and a defeat in the House of Lords last year our client thought that the government had quite sensibly given up seeking to remove legal protections for internationally important habitats.

The previous amendment similarly said planning authorities would have to assume there would be no sewage pollution implications from new developments, in an attempt to circumvent the EU rules.

The shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed MP, said: “The Conservative government created the housing crisis, then made it worse by scrapping housebuilding targets.

A government spokesperson said: “What the changes made in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act do is enable the designation of areas in which water companies will be required to upgrade wastewater treatment works to reduce nutrient pollution on our waterways by April 2030.

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