Environment Agency in need of 'fundamental reform' as MP attacks response to Whittlesey environmental disasters

North East Cambridgeshire MP Steve Barclay has attacked the Environment Agency over its lack of transparency and action over major environmental incidents in Whittlesey and insisted that the body needs “fundamental reform.”

Mr Barclay was speaking during a parliamentary debate in which he expressed his dissatisfaction about the agency’s response to a number of serious incidents in his constituency; including in Whittlesey.

Mr Barclay insisted that he was deeply unhappy to not see action taken over the dumping of 122,000 tonnes of waste at Saxon Pit, in Whittlesey, between October 2017 and February 2018.

Despite assurances from the agency that the issue was a priority, no prosecutions have materialised seven years on and the waste still remains in place.

Mr Barclay said: “The EA’s initial response was to say that they has been totally unaware of 122,00 tonnes of waste being dumped but regardless of if they were asleep at the wheel, you would expect them to act. They told the operator that they expected all waste to be disposed of by October 10, 2018 but but seven years on, the waste remains in situ."

Mr Barclay also hit out at the EA’s response to serious pollution to water in Kings’s Dyke that is believed to have killed over 900 fish in September 2024.

The Environment Agency stated that an Anglian Water pumping station discharged for 23 hours due to a pump failure but while confirming a failure did occur, Anglian Water has insisted that “because of the amount of rain which fell in a short space of time, any spill from our pumping station would have been heavily diluted, and is definitely not raw sewage.”

No findings have been revealed from the Environment Agency’s investigation and no prosecutions have yet been pursued. The latest is the this is now expected in September.

Mr Barclay said: “We have the most serious level of pollution incident, a category one, and yet the EA that we will not tell the public in Whittlesey the cause of that for over a year. Even though I suspect the department probably knows internally whether or not Anglian Water was responsible for that and of a criminal investigation should follow.

“One chases as a constituency MP on behalf of constituents to give them some answers and yet organisation feel that they are unaccountable.

“As Secretary of State, I found the organisation so unresponsive I had to take the unusual step of issuing a ministerial direction. In fact, I issued two in the six months I was in the department when none has been issued in the seven years before.”

He concluded that the incidents showed that the Environment Agency has shown “a remarkable lack of transparency or accountability to ministers or members of parliament and a remarkable lack of willing to take action against those causing the worst levels of environmental damage.”

Mr Barclay further added that the agency could not blame issues on resources with statistics showing that is staffing increased by 21% to 10,791 and its expenditure from £1.4billion to £2.2billion during the last parliament.

The Peterborough Telegraph has contacted the Environment Agency for a response.