The Environment Agency has not moved away from its frontline monitoring and enforcement role (‘It is desperate’: how Environment Agency staff were silenced as pollution worsened, 29 January). We monitor the state of our rivers ourselves, and now also require water companies to do the same and make the results public. We monitor the country’s coastal bathing waters, which, thanks to the EA’s robust regulatory work, are in the best state ever: in 2021, 99% of them met at least the minimum standards, the highest result since we introduced tighter standards in 2015. We take robust enforcement action against those who break the law, as Southern Water found out last year when it received a record £90m fine in a prosecution we brought. And we respond to hundreds of environmental incidents every year. Last year, more than 76,000 were reported to us, including flood, drought, fires, fish kills and pollution incidents.
The reality is that every day our fantastic staff create better places for people and wildlife. Last year we enhanced water quality in over 4,500km of our rivers by tackling pollution, unsustainable abstraction and invasive species; improved the nation’s air quality by regulating down emissions; cut the number of illegal waste sites; and completed our latest flood defence building programme, better protecting over 300,000 homes.
Like the rest of the public sector, we operate within a tight budget and must prioritise what we do. But we will always do the best we can with the money we have for the people and places we serve.
Emma Howard Boyd
Chair, Environment Agency
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