CHRIS Loder’s column – New Blackmore Vale, April 14 – provokes a sigh with each paragraph.

Dorset to pilot ‘instant justice’. What could possibly go wrong?

As for his views on the sewerage scandal: Staff at England’s Environment Agency say it has been cut back to such an extent that they cannot do their jobs and the regulator is no longer a deterrent to polluters.

The agency’s environmental protection work has slumped from about £170m in 2009-10 to a low of £76m in 2019-20 and £94m last year.

All of this is under a Conservative government. If the Government doesn’t fund the Environment Agency properly so it can do its work, and if monitoring is not in place on all the sewage outfalls, how can you even know how big the problem is?

This has resulted in an agency which is now essentially toothless and unable to hold polluters to account.

READ MORE: COLUMN: Dorset to pilot ‘instant justice’
WANT TO WRITE? Click here to submit your letter

Finally, Mr Loder fails to point out that water companies have massively under-invested their profits over the last 25 years, prioritising shareholder interest instead.

Neither does he mention the serious harm which farm run-off from intensive agriculture causes.

The spotlight has been shone on this issue not by the Government but by numerous individuals and environmental groups.

I recommend he catches up with Paul Whitehouse: Our Troubled Rivers on BBC iPlayer for an overview of the situation.

CHARLES ELLIS
Blandford Forum