May 16th, 2025
Landmark Legal Victory for England’s Rivers: The Court of Appeal’s Pickering Judgment
Costa Beck. Photo by: Jonathan Thacker
ELF has worked with Emily Shirley of Thamesbank over decades. There is no one who knows more about campaigning for the River Thames and more generally, around river issues. We asked Emily to give us her reflections on the successful Court of Appeal, Pickering case.
On the 2nd April 2025 the Court of Appeal handed down judgement, agreeing with the High Court before it, finding all 10 English River Basin Management Plans “Unlawful”.
The Government will now finally have to clean up all our water bodies in England by 2027 as a result of the most significant administrative law decision concerning water and the environment in decades, says Emily.
What does this mean?
The Government will have to go back to the drawing board to ensure that all 10 English River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) are based on a Programme of Measures (PoM) as required by Article 11 in the Water Framework Directive (WFD). A PoM is separate to the RBMP but is required to inform how the environmental objectives in Article 4 of the WFD will be met by practical or other measures specific to the water bodies within each RBMP by 2027. The Court of Appeal judges expressed surprise that no PoM existed for any of the RBMPs. A rather troubling omission but perhaps no surprise considering the dire state of our waters in England.
Once the RBMPs contain the lawful information required by Articles 11 & 4, they will need to be put out for public consultation.
The Case was brought by the Pickering Fishery Association with Fish Legal against the Government’s adoption of the RBMP for Humber. The case was brought because the RBMP did not address the specific pollution problems for the Costa Beck, one of the 1000 water bodies covered by the RBMP. Nor was the Pickering Fishery Association consulted on the fact that Costa Beck’s water quality was going to deteriorate further. The Government took the same approach for all the RBMPs thus setting up all the RBMPs to fail and not achieve the legal environmental objectives for water quality by 2027 as required under the WFD.
As many ELF blog readers will know, the Water Framework Directive 2000 (WFD) was introduced to create a coherent, integrated and sustainable approach for European water management in order to improve and safeguard water quality through the RBMPs. The post-Brexit Water Framework Directive Regulations 2017 replicate the WFD.
Unfortunately to date, only 14% of our rivers currently meet the WFD environmental objectives and, out of all the 4929 water bodies in England, only 16% meet good ecological status. The facts speak for themselves. Successive governments have failed dismally to look after our water as required by the WFD.
As part of Thamesbank (a Thames River based environmental organisation) we have campaigned for many years without success to get the UK Government to manage water sustainably and to adhere to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, targets 5 and 6 (UN SDG 6) as agreed to internationally by the UK Government in 2015. All this we could not have done without the help of ELF.
UN SDG 6 requires the UK Government to implement Integrated Water Resources Management at all levels with Nature Based Solutions (IWRM &NBS). IWRM & NBS is global best practice in sustainable water management and essential to achieving the environmental objectives mandated by Article 4 of the WFD.
We now expect to see the prioritisation of IWRM & NBS in each reformulated RBMP.
The Court of Appeal Judgment April 2nd 2025: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/secretary-of-state-for-environment-food-and-rural-affairs-v-pickering-fishery-association/ The High Court Ruling can be accessed here: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/2023/2918