A Timeline of the River Wye (and its Friends)

The following is a linked chronology of the recent history of the Wye.

• 1995-1996. The Wye and Lugg are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This provides clear definition of the features that make the Wye so special describing it as “a large, linear ecosystem which acts as an important wildlife corridor, an essential migration route, and a key breeding area for many nationally and internationally important species”, including allis and twaite shad; river, sea and brook lamprey, Atlantic salmon, bullhead, grayling, otter, Atlantic stream crayfish, freshwater pearl mussels and the famous floating beds of ranunculus. A range of protections are put in place.

• 1997. Haycock Associates produce a report for English Nature entitle “Protection of River SSSIs from Diffuse Pollution (a case study of the River Lugg Catchment)” identifying the risk of runoff associated with increased potato and oilseed rape production; appropriate buffer strips are recommended.

  2004. The River Wye and a large majority of its tributaries is declared an Special Area of Conservation, incorporating over 30 SSSIs in the catchment. The designation specifically lists as a qualifying habitat to be conserved as “Water courses of plain to montane levels with the Ranunculion fluitantis and Callitricho-Batrachion vegetation. (Rivers with floating vegetation often dominated by water crowfoot)”.

• 2013. In response to increasing concerns about agricultural pollution in watercourses, Wales announces the Nitrate Pollution Prevention (Wales) Regulations 2013.

• 2014. Wye Nutrient Management Plan and Action Plan adopted which “gives a broad approach to reducing phosphate levels across the River Wye catchment”.

• 2014. Formation of the Wye Catchment Partnership (WCP), a collaborative body of stakeholders seeking to return the river to good ecological health based on the UK government’s “Catchment Based Approach”.

• 2015. In face of a ruling against them, the UK government in High Court settles an action brought by WWF-UK, the Angling Trust and Fish Legal requiring Water Protection Zones (WPZs, bespoke sets of rules for a water catchment that puts in place appropriate measure to protect the specific environment it applies to) must be considered, and not as a “last resort”.

• 2018. The UK Government introduce the Farming Rules for Water to protect the river from agricultural runoff.

• 2018. Avara Foods formed as a joint venture between Faccenda and Cargill, focussing on intensive rearing of chickens and turkeys in the Wye and Severn catchments.

• 2019. Herefordshire Council implement nutrient neutrality rules in the Lugg catchment, based on advice from Natural England.

• 2020. The Wye and Usk Foundation publishes an article describing an ongoing ecological disaster in the river Wye, evidenced by increases in the spread of algal blooms on the Wye and indicating that this is result of intensification of agriculture and the attendant increase in nutrient in the catchment.

• 2020. Wye Salmon Association (WSA) Citizen Science group begins taking water quality tests in the Wye and its tributaries.

• 2021. Welsh Government introduces the Control of Agricultural Pollution regulations on an all-Wales basis; application of regulations is phased over following 5 years with numerous delays.

• 2021. NRW releases their SAC compliance assessment on the Welsh Wye; 28 waterbodies fail (70%) , 9 pass (22.5%) and 3 are not assessed (7.5%).

• 2021. Save the Wye campaign is launched, with concerned citizens throughout the catchment walked the Wye to raise awareness of the impact of pollution on the river.

• 2021. Citizen science programmes launched by Friends of the Upper Wye, Friends of the Lugg, Friends of the Lower Wye (now all Friends of the River Wye) and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE). Methodology is provided by Cardiff University in consultation with EA and NRW.

• 2021. High court ruling confirms 2015 ruling that the UK Government must produce Diffuse Water Pollution Plans, including assessment of Water Protection Zones, in the face of government attempting to drop these after only a few are produced.

• 2021/22. The 2021/22 House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee Report outlines a clear set of evidence-based conclusions and recommendations to government.

• 2022. WyeViz is launched, providing public access to all data from Friends of the Upper Wye in near-time.

• 2022. Herefordshire Council send a letter to the Environment Secretary requesting the implementation of a Water Protection Zone for the Wye Catchment to avoid ecological disaster, following the failure of all recent efforts to improve the situation, agreed with Powys and Monmouthshire Councils, NFU, the AHDB, Home Builders Federation, Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Wye Catchment Nutrient Management Board.

• 2022. Environment Secretary rejects Herefordshire Council’s request for a Water Protection Zone; as a result Herefordshire Council establish a Cabinet Commission to recover the River Wye.

• 2022. Friends of the Lugg and Friends of the Upper Wye merge to become a single organisation.

• January 2023. Avara publish a sustainable poultry roadmap, outlining how they will change how manure in their supply chain is managed; a commitment is made to providing transparency in the supply chain, but this data is not forthcoming.

• January 2023. US District Court finds that Cargill and other poultry processors were responsible and liable for the damage to the Illinois River in Oklahoma, and that they were responsible for halting pollution in the catchment, a scenario which has significant parallels with the Wye.

• March 2023. Herefordshire Council unanimously supported a notice of motion for the Council executive to consider a formal and legal acknowledgement of the rights of the river through a council byelaw, an approach previously attempted (unsuccessfully) by Frome Council; this approach was subsequently dropped by Herefordshire Council after legal advice that a byelaw was not appropriate.

• May 2023. The Environment Agency (EA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) jointly published data which describes where nutrient pollution is coming from (established with software called the Source Apportionment-GIS tool or SAGIS), showing that more than 70% is coming from agriculture/land use in the Wye catchment.

• May 2023. Lancaster University’s "Re-focusing Phosphorus use in the Wye Catchment” (RePhoKUs report) lays out the story of phosphorus in the Wye catchment, including articulating the 3000t excess phosphorus that is seen each year and the overall intensity of twice that of the rest of the UK.

• May 2023. Natural England (NE) announces the downgrade of the River Wye and Lugg SSSIs to “unfavourable - declining”, including the summarised data on which it was based.

• May 2023. Environment Secretary Therese Coffey holds a round table regarding the declining status of the Wye in Hereford.

• June 2023. The “Wye Alliance of Citizen Science Groups” (FOUW, FotLW, WSA & CPRE) migrate to a single platform for data collection; WyeViz relaunched with data from all Wye citizen scientists.

• June 2023. Tesco agrees to meet Save the Wye to discuss the pollution caused by their supply chain in the Wye.

• July 2023. George Monbiot and Spanner Films record Rivercide, a live-streamed documentary investigating the causes of the decline of the river.

• July 2023. Craig Bennett, CEO of the Wildlife Trusts, sends a letter to the Secretary of State for the Environment and the First Minister of Wales calling for “special measures” for the Wye (specifically for the recommendations of the RePhoKUs report to be adopted) as agreed at the Hay-on-Wye roundtable by the Wildlife Trusts, NRW, EA, Natural England, Tesco, Avara Foods, Waitrose, Welsh Water, NFU, Herefordshire Council, Powys County Council, WWF, FOUW, FotLW, WUF and an array of further stakeholders and campaigning groups.

• July 2023. All River Wye citizen science data amalgamated into a single data platform under the heading of the “Wye Citizen Science Alliance”.

• November 2023. Cardiff University win the Natural Environment Research Council’s Public Engagement Impact Award for “Bringing together citizen scientists and regulators to monitor the River Wye and beyond”.

• November 2023. DEFRA’s River Basin Management Planning ruled unlawful in the High Court. The government appeals.

• December 2023. UK Government grant Herefordshire Council £1.73m from local nutrient mitigation fund.

• February 2024. Friends of the Lower Wye and Friends of the Upper Wye join to become ‘Friends of the River Wye’.

• April 2024. Government announces approx £65m investment in the River Wye Action Plan, which outlines a range of actions including £35m for poultry manure combustors and an array of other initiatives as well as the appointment of a River Guardian; on clarification it is made clear that none of this money is new investment, but from existing funds and programmes, and is criticised for being focussed on initiatives that potentially lock in polluting practices.

• May 2024. The High Court rejects claims that the EA has failed to effectively enforce its Farming Rules for Water (FRfW), but confirmed that the interpretation defined by the EA and River Action - to only apply manure and fertiliser based on soil and crop need - was correct and that “current agricultural working practices would have to change” to comply. The Wye is heavily cited.

• May 2024. General election announced for July 2024. The Wye Manifesto is released by a broad group of river and environmental groups, calling for 4 clear points of action for the river. The River Champion role, as a political appointment, is dissolved.

• June 2024. The Warren at Hay-on-Wye awarded first Welsh river official bathing water status.

• July 2024. Public advised not to swim at the Warren due to unsafe levels of bacteria detected by NRW.

• July 2024. The WCP collaboration with Mott Macdonald (funded by the EA) to produced the Understanding the Wye Catchment report, which makes clear the scale of change required to return the catchment to health (reduction in application rates of at least 35% manure and 75% fertiliser across the catchment in order to achieve the scale of reduction needed in nutrient levels).

• July 2024. Legal firm Leigh Day announce a class action against Avara/Cargill for the role of their business and supply chain in the decline in the river.

• September 2024. The EA publish their Indicative Catchment Statistics for Nutrient Pollution report that used a separate model to the Mott Macdonald report, with highly aligned results, suggesting that at least a two-thirds reduction in agricultural phosphorus pollution was required to reach compliance in the Wye.

• October 2024. First in-person meeting of four of the five the new Wye MPs.

• November 2024. The Office for Environmental Protection launches an investigation into the Farming Rules for Water, stating “The OEP believes that the Statutory Guidance may be unlawful as some of the wording is not consistent with the regulations themselves. This guidance is likely to be relied upon by farmers and may therefore lead to breaches of the regulations when applying manure or fertiliser to the land.”

• December 2024. WCP and NMB meet with UK and Welsh ministers to discuss funding for Wye partnerships.

• December 2024. OFWAT publish AMP8 final determination enabling Dwr Cymru's planned spend of in infrastructure in the Wye catchment (2025-2030, details to be announced).

• January 2025. The NRW publish their updated SAC assessments, finding that only 42% of the Wye passed compliance for phosphorus in the upper Wye catchment (uncertain as to how many waterbodies were not assessed), 60% passed compliance for Biological Oxygen Demand (a key metric for freshwater species; 66% of those tested passed) and just 38% passed Trophic Diatom Index (a way of measuring algal blooms in the river).

• February 2025. Hydro-Ecology Consulting Ltd produce a scoping review to identify effective on-farm practices for reduction of diffuse pollution from agriculture for WWF, largely agreeing with findings from the Understanding the Wye Catchment report.

• March 2025. A statutory review of the Control of Agricultural Pollution Regulations by the Welsh government recommends that, rather than focussing on nitrogen, the regulations should be adjusted to “incorporate as a minimum, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and pH, including soil testing”

• March 2025. DEFRA under the new Labour government rescind the circa £65m River Wye Action Plan and announce £1m “research initiative to tackle water quality issues in the River Wye” with the Welsh Government.

• March 2025. In an action brought by the NFU against Herefordshire council, The High Court rules in favour of the council and states that manure on farms is a waste product and must be handled as such, with implications for farms across England.

• April 2025. UK Government fail in their appeal against findings in 2023 that water basin management plans were insufficient.

• April 2025. A UK Government review of Defra’s approach to regulation recommends that “Defra should swiftly develop plans to reform slurry application and storage to help address diffuse water pollution from agricultural sources. This is likely to involve changing the Farming Rules for Water and wider regulations relating to slurry application and storage.”

• April 2025. In what is believed to be a UK first, Herefordshire Council appoints a Voice of the River Wye to represent the River Wye on to the Nutrient Management Board.

• April 2025. The UK government publishes details of £1.6m in grant funding to Avara as compensation for disease outbreaks in their chicken factories.