The campaigning group Fish Legal has called for a Judicial Review claiming that the Environment Agency has essentially admitted that their own plan to tackle pollution in the River Wye will not work, yet declined to take decisive action to fix it.
The legal challenge, launched on March 5, targets the River Wye Diffuse Water Pollution Plan, published by the Environment Agency in November 2025. In that plan, regulators accept that existing measures have failed and that even the additional steps now proposed are unlikely to reduce pollution enough to meet legally binding environmental standards.
Despite those admissions, the plan postpones any decision on whether stronger regulatory action is required, including the use of Water Protection Zones, a statutory tool designed for catchments where voluntary and existing controls have not worked.
Fish Legal says that once regulators accept their approach will fail, the law requires them to identify and assess what additional measures are necessary. Continuing to defer that decision, while pollution persists in one of England’s most protected rivers, is unlawful.
The River Wye and its tributary, the River Lugg, are internationally protected as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and as part of a Special Area of Conservation. Under environmental law, regulators must act when monitoring shows environmental objectives are unlikely to be met.
Head of Policy and Strategy at Fish Legal Zoe Wedderburn-Day, said: “The Environment Agency’s own plan accepts that the River Wye will not recover under the current approach. When the law requires action, regulators cannot simply acknowledge failure and postpone hard decisions yet again. After years of delay and continuing damage to a protected river, that is no longer lawful.”
The challenge also relates to commitments made by the government and Environment Agency following earlier court proceedings in 2015, when it agreed to carry out proper evaluations of whether stronger regulatory tools were needed to address diffuse agricultural pollution in protected rivers.
Fish Legal says that, ten years on, the River Wye plan still fails to deliver the assessment and decision-making that was promised.
She continued: “This case is not about asking judges to run environmental policy. It is about asking the court to ensure that when regulators admit their plans will fail, the law is followed and decisions are actually taken.”
What is this case about?
This case concerns the lawfulness of the Environment Agency’s plan for tackling agricultural pollution in the River Wye and its tributary, the River Lugg. It is not a dispute about whether the river is polluted. The dispute is about what the law requires regulators to do once they accept that their current approach will not work.
What is the River Wye Diffuse Water Pollution Plan?
The River Wye Diffuse Water Pollution Plan, published in November 2025, is an official Environment Agency document, produced jointly with Natural England, as part of the government’s obligations to protect internationally important rivers. The Wye and the Lugg are both protected under UK and international law as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and as part of a Special Area of Conservation. The plan is intended to set out how diffuse pollution, mainly from agriculture, will be reduced so that legal environmental objectives are met.
