Today, the King’s Speech has set out the Government’s legislative agenda for the next year, including the introduction of legislation to ‘clean up the water industry.’

The Clean Water Bill (previously referred to as the Water Reform Bill) is the most important policy change affecting freshwater in a generation, and a huge opportunity to get the foundations right for nature recovery. Specifically, Government has the chance to address two persistent failures of the water management framework – exclusion of small waters, and inadequate protection of the best freshwater habitats.

By including small waters in the official management programme, we can bring the regulatory framework up to date with new scientific evidence on the importance of these overlooked habitats. This would unlock investment in low cost, high impact restoration actions like pond creation.