Thames Water, I refuse to pay the sewage charge in my bill while you pollute Britain’s rivers and coastlines Jenny Jones Jenny Jones

I will calmly read all the threatening letters and await the court case against me. But I will take a stand even if our government won’t Wed 2 Sep 2026 12.00 CEST 636

I can’t even remember when I decided to stop paying the sewage element of my Thames Water bill. It might have been after reading this headline from the Guardian in July 2025: “Serious pollution incidents by English water companies rose 60% last year,” with the subheading: “Environment Agency records 75 serious incidents among total of 2,800, with Thames Water being worst offender.”

Living in London means that my supplier is Thames Water, which makes a profit out of pollution. I decided that if the government wouldn’t act, I could at least do my part and not pay for this travesty.

The case for not paying these outrageous charges is clear. The water companies are not fulfilling their duties and instead they are discharging raw sewage into our waterways and lives. Beyond that, they have brought in hosepipe bans, despite last winter being one of the wettest on record, because they haven’t built enough reservoirs to store water for use in the summer.

“There were parents dropping their children off and then heaving from the smell,” says Liz Thompson, 45, who runs Blessings Nursery in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

During the recent heatwaves, the smell from an illegal waste dump on Midland Road, just metres from the nursery, became so unbearable that staff had to keep the doors and windows shut and the children couldn’t play outside.

“It smelled like dead people, like really bad rotten food. It was horrible,” she says.

The team behind a conservation project have seen the birth of a record number of chicks of an endangered species.

Almost 150 little tern chicks have fledged at Beacon Lagoons, near Easington on the East Yorkshire coast, according to the RSPB.

The charity said this year had seen the highest number of breeding pairs since the site began operating 50 years ago – 116, up from 59 pairs just two years ago.

A new study has found that large parts of England and Wales offer suitable habitat for pine martens, despite the iconic species disappearing from much of the UK more than a century ago.

Recently published in Landscape Ecology, the study is the first of its kind to draw on pine marten records from across the whole of Europe. Using species distribution modelling, it provides important new evidence to support the recovery of this once widespread native species and follows successful reintroduction efforts in areas such as Devon, Somerset, Wales and the Lake District.

Driven to extinction in most of England and Wales in the early 20th century due to habitat loss and persecution, pine martens – a small, cat-sized animal belonging to the weasel (mustelid) family - play an important role in the recovery of woodland ecosystems. Together with partners, Kent Wildlife Trust, who conducted the research, will use the new findings to help identify suitable areas where the species could thrive once again, paving the way for their return across further parts of their former range.

High winds associated with El Niño could cause widespread mortality among tree species already weakened by a prolonged period of extreme heat and drought, experts have warned.

This summer much of Europe has been scorched by a series of record-breaking climate crisis-induced heatwaves. The impact is notable across much of England’s countryside, where once green land has turned brown, and many trees are undergoing “early autumn” – wilting and losing their leaves early – to cope with extreme heat.

Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Kew Gardens, said to cope with these extreme conditions, trees had not grown as they normally would, and had become less flexible and more brittle.

The season’s mean temperature was made around 130 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.

An average mean temperature of 16.5°C puts this summer as provisionally the warmest on record, as well as the warmest season for the UK in a series which goes back to 1884.

It was also one of the sunniest summers on record (dating back to 1910) for some places, with the season being very dry for many, though late season rain helped steer places away from seasonal rainfall records.

A new river restoration project is bringing major changes to a section of the River Wye.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has started work at Llangurig to reintroduce boulders into the river, aiming to improve habitats, support wildlife, and restore natural river processes.

Brendan Adair, project manager for the Upper Wye Catchment Restoration Project, said: "We’ve spent the last two years building a detailed understanding of this stretch of river through surveys and monitoring, so we can target the work where it has the greatest benefit.

Scottish Environment LINK has today launched a new Nature Protection Scorecard to track the performance of the Scottish government and public bodies in protecting and restoring the natural environment.

The scorecard collates a range of data to judge how well the Scottish government is performing and the extent to which public bodies are using their enforcement powers. While not intended to be comprehensive, the scorecard shines a spotlight on the Scottish public bodies with most significant responsibility for environmental delivery, and focuses on action and resourcing.

The level of monitoring of Scotland’s most important sites for nature is among the metrics tracked in the scorecard. The figures show that just under 3% of Scotland’s protected sites underwent site condition monitoring by NatureScot in 2025. This was a fall from 2021, when 5.3% of protected sites were monitored. 

The country’s young pupils, typically comfortable with tablets, tech and digital information, are being inspired to learn about nature in the new school term, thanks to the Nature Discovery Map Scotland.

The new school term for the Nature Discovery Map Scotland is being launched with a promotional film celebrating the experience of teachers and pupils at Braes High School in Falkirk, a set of easy and exciting free lesson plans, and a webinar programme for teachers, sharing ways to bring nature-based learning into everything from maths and literacy to emotional wellbeing and food.

The number of suspected illegal discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas by water companies during dry weather increased significantly during the first five months of 2026.

Dumping raw sewage into waterways during dry spells via overflows amounts to pollution. It is considered a breach of the permits given to water companies and is illegal. Discharging during dry weather increases the toxicity of the sewage pollution entering waterways. Rivers have less flow and volume, and there is no rainwater to dilute the sewage pollution entering the waterway.

Last year, in what regulators said was tougher action on sewage pollution, water companies in England were for the first time required to report to the Environment Agency the number of times they discharged raw sewage from combined sewer overflows during dry weather. A dry day spill is flagged when an overflow operates despite little to no rainfall that day and the previous day.

Conservationists trying to reintroduce the corncrake to Yorkshire say they're "very hopeful" the rare bird could once again flourish in the county.

Over the summer, a number of captivity-reared corncrakes have been released into the wild as part of the effort to re-establish the population.

Craig Ralston, senior reserve manager for Natural England's Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve, said he was "excited" about the possible return of the bird.

A keen chough-watcher and a National Trust ranger team are in the running for a BBC Radio Cornwall Make a Difference Environmental Award.

Also nominated are a woman who uses her horticultural skills to supporting adults with learning disabilities and the team behind the restoration of an abandoned water garden and nursery.

The aim of the Environmental Award is to celebrate an individual or group of people who help to make where they live more environmentally-friendly and better for nature.

An innovative scheme to rapidly rewet peat on upland moors is protecting landscapes and communities from extremes such as wildfire and flooding, conservationists said.

More than 3,000 “scallop bunds” – semi-circular embankments a few metres wide – have been created across hundreds of acres of upland peat on the National Trust’s Holcombe Moor, north of Manchester.

The bunds, which are built of peat and re-covered with vegetation to protect it, capture rainwater in thousands of spots at the top of the moor.

Recent hot weather may be having an impact on European mantis numbers in the island, experts have said.

The European mantis can be found across central Europe with Jersey at the northern edge of its range.

Scientists have predicted more could be seen in the British Isles in the face of climate change, with a rise in sightings in recent years.

On Monday, Pensthorpe Natural Park announced that a pair of beaver babies, or kits, had been born in the wild in Norfolk for the first time in 500 years.

One of their parents was first spotted on the 700-acre conservation site near Fakenham in November 2025, with another adult beaver soon joining.

A few months later, the kits were born and have since been learning to play and feed in an undisclosed area of the site.

South West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.

Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills.

South West Water, which operates across Devon, Cornwall and parts of Dorset and Somerset, was among the top three worst performers in four out of the six categories.

A dramatic gathering of some of the North East’s most striking birds has been captured at RSPB Saltholme after a marsh harrier sent flocks of waders and ducks into the air.

Northern Echo Camera Club member Pat Blewitt photographed avocets and black-tailed godwits taking off alongside teal as the bird of prey passed overhead at the Teesside nature reserve this week.

The encounter brought together several species with notable conservation stories in one scene, with the black-tailed godwit currently on the UK Red List of birds of highest conservation concern.

A nature reserve in Hullbridge has been praised for its wildlife-friendly management following a visit from an Essex Wildlife Trust ranger.

Hullbridge Parish Council invited community ranger John to tour Kendal Park Nature Reserve and provide an independent assessment of how the site is managed.

During the visit, he highlighted the balance between biodiversity, wildlife protection and tree management, praising the council’s approach to maintaining the reserve.

One evening in early August, farmer Daniel Sizer's phone buzzed with a message.

It was from his local water board and it read: "River levels are low but have recovered enough to allow one night of irrigation tonight."

Like much of the lower half of England, Daniel's fourth-generation farm had seen barely any rain in nearly three months.

A wildlife trust said some species had been spotted in nature reserves this summer for the first time in years.

Volunteers for the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust recorded a great white egret near Ware and more than 300 Chalkhill blue butterflies at Hexton Chalk Pit near Hitchin, where they also found a glow-worm for the first time in 25 years.

The trust said it was partly due to the unusually hot weather but also the result of increased surveying and monitoring in the county.

The area of sea around Jersey protected against damaging fishing practices is to be expanded by more than 15%.

The government said the marine protected area network, which is territorial waters off limits to trawling and dredging, would be increasing from 6.5% to 21.7%.

It said the measures, coming into force on September 1, would protect some of the island's most important marine habitats, including its sensitive and biodiverse shallow reefs, and would help keep fish stocks sustainable for the fishing industry.

For 50 years, wardens and volunteers at Spurn Bird Observatory have worked to protect little terns at Beacon Ponds, near Kilnsea, helping one of the UK's most vulnerable seabirds breed on the Humber.

They offer daily protection, fencing, monitoring and public engagement to support the colony. The team spend long days in all weathers protecting the birds, monitoring nests and chicks, and talking to visitors.

The project is a finalist in the BBC Radio Humberside Make a Difference Awards 2026 in the Environment category.

The summer of 2026 has brought one of the UK’s most severe wildfire seasons in recent years, fuelled by extreme heat and exceptionally dry conditions. More than 500 fires were recorded across the country in July alone, affecting agricultural land and moorland, heathland, and upland grasslands, landscapes that store carbon, regulate water, reduce flood risk and support some of the UK’s most valuable biodiversity.

While the visible damage caused by wildfire is clear, the impacts on soil health are much harder to see. The project is led by Professor Davey Jones of Bangor University’s School of Environmental and Natural Sciences, working with colleagues Professor Dave Chadwick, Professor Robert Griffiths, Dr Emily Cooledge and Dr Karina Marsden.

“Soil is often called the UK’s forgotten ecosystem, but it does an enormous amount of work for us below our feet, locking away carbon, filtering our drinking water and supporting the plants and animals that our landscapes depend on,” said Professor Jones. “Immediately after a fire, the soil can tell us a great deal about how badly it has been affected. But some of those signals can change rapidly following rainfall, erosion and vegetation recovery. That’s why it is so important that we are able to get into the field quickly following wildfires.”

A Male Montagu's harrier currently holds the highest score in birds, at least according to the harrier when reached out to for comment by the CBC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagu%27s_harrier