We managed to get an invitation to join this online meeting which included Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow and the new CEO of Thames Water, Sarah Bentley as well as a long list of influencial people from the industry, Defra and so on.
The Environment Agency sent just a film of their man Harvey Bradshaw which seemed to represent an alternative reality - the usual Agency spin with little relationship to real life or evidence. Watch for yourselves if you think that's unfair.
Experienced campaigners like Doug Kennedy and Charles Rangeley-Wilson and others added some hard reality and the presentations are all here in the Youtube link.
WASP got some questions in and you can hear these being put by Lord Howe at around 1.45:30 and 1.53.30 if you want to skip through.
Here is the video - the written questions I asked are in the screenshots below. Excuse the typos, I was trying to listen and type...
The first question was to make the point that chalk streams are unique but all rivers are special and valuable and deserve protection.
The second one was in case anyone at the meeting didn't realise what a false picture the Environment Agency was painting .
And the next one which relates to a battle we have been fighting for a while now and one which we will continue to push hard on. After all, at least we ought to have our water companies obeying the law, not trying to change it to allow more pollution.
All of the work that is required to dig up the evidence that we use to put such questions and back up the arguments comes from our team of volunteers and supporters and they are coming up with some incredible material.
New Thames Water CEO? New outlook? Let's see what happens - I can't imagine that Sarah Bentley has been appointed to reduce profits, but we have always maintained that we don't expect a private industry to do this for free. However, we do expect it not to destroy our environment, as a minimum standard..
More on the way from WASP. Your support is invaluable.
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