Rights for Rivers
In the last two years, since the Lib Dem/Green Alliance has been leading Wealden District Council, we have pioneered new approaches to river protection: we have introduced Grampian planning conditions on developments (stopping 2,000 properties from being occupied, without adequate sewage provision being in place); we have formed a group of 20 plus councils to lobby the Environment Agency, Ofwat and Southern Water; we invested in the Wilder Ouse project, planting hundreds of trees and restoring habitat; and personally, I have co-founded and coordinated Project Ripple Effect, a citizen science river testing initiative. In Full Council, on 16th July, we strengthened this collective will by passing a motion that declared our support for Rights for Rivers. While this does not change the law of the land, it does align Wealden District Council with a powerful global movement that is gaining momentum and demanding a reset in the way we treat our most precious and life-giving resource.
As Cllr. Millward said in the meeting, “We need to fundamentally change our relationship with nature. Declaring river rights is a first step. It has the potential, if we embrace it, to usher in a new way of thinking, to lay a new foundational principle beneath our decision making. A limited company costs £50 and 15 minutes to create - and gets legal personhood. But an ancient river, on which all life quite literally depends, does not.”
