National Parks Ignored in Water Commission Report

Published: 21 July 2025

The Cunliffe Independent Water Commission has today published 88 recommendations for reforming the water regulatory system in England and Wales, but throughout 400+ pages of this detailed report, National Parks fail to be mentioned once.   

This attitude fits a depressing trend. Our research shows that National Park rivers, lakes and streams are often pollution hot spots, but they suffer from ‘designation blindness’ whereby regulators and companies ignore their protected status when it comes to water decision making. 

The reforms in the Cunliffe Review call for Ofwat (the body responsible for the economic regulation of the water industry) to be replaced by a single water regulator in England and a single water regulator in Wales. This is proposed alongside major changes to environmental regulation and legal reforms to improve public health.  

We welcome the call for a new National Strategy for water and a strengthened legislative framework: both are significant opportunities to properly prioritise National Parks and National Landscapes. We see the new proposed regional water authorities across England and Wales as a key way to properly ensure investment is targeted in Protected Landscapes. It is fundamental that National Parks are prioritised in local water investment planning to improve the state of rural sewage works. Our health check report found that 176,818 hours of sewage was released from storm overflows in 2022 alone, equivalent to 7,367 days. 

As Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary confirmed today in his speech, the water industry is ‘broken’, but we also know that agricultural pollution and rural management has a significant part to play in the health of our waterways. Every single lake, river and stream in England’s National Parks is polluted and only 1 water body in Welsh National Parks meets the highest standards we all expect. 

Fiddling around the edges will not result in the urgent change we need to see, and that’s why, alongside 37 other organisations, we co-signed the Surfers Against Sewage letter to Keir Starmer and Steve Reed, because we now that this is a once-in-a-generation chance to overhaul a broken system that puts profit before nature. Without bold reform, wildlife will continue to suffer, rivers will die, and pollution will persist. 

Our response to the Water Commission highlighted the perverse situation resulting in National Park waters being ignored, or even in a worse state than the rest of the country. We proposed solutions including:  

1. Leadership by Governments in England and Wales to require that companies and regulators prioritise National Park waterways (as a critical part of delivering their ‘30×30’ commitments), deliver programmes of measures faster, and meet the highest Water Framework Directive standards.   
2. Reform of water regulation to require companies to upgrade poorly maintained and under-sized infrastructure in rural National Parks.  It is also critical that companies and shareholders (and not the public) must foot the bill for stopping widespread illegal pollution.   
3. Using new powers in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act to make detailed regulations that require water companies and regulators to take action to clean up waterways in National Parks and National Landscapes in England, and creation of similar powers in Wales.   

The Government must now seize the opportunities presented by this report’s recommendations and change the law so that National Parks are prioritised and put at the heart of our collective fight for clean rivers, seas and lakes. 

Since we launched our water campaign last summer, we have made some good progress. Water Minister Emma Hardy made a commitment to Parliament to take forward the regulations (our third recommendation above). Following our complaint to the Office of Environmental Protection, Ofwat requested that all companies address the requirements of the Protected Landscapes duties. But we will not stop until National Park waterways are in good ecological health. We’re holding the Water Minister to her promise to ensure new National Park waterways regulations are swiftly implemented in England. We are working to secure an amendment to the law in the Senedd to enable similar action in Wales.