New report finds ‘environmental disaster’ at United Utilities’ Haweswater reserve
A new report has accused United Utilities and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) of “wasting millions of pounds of public money” on land management schemes in the Lake District, resulting in some cases in “environmental disasters”.
The ‘United Utilities at Haweswater’ report found that a £3 million publicly funded tree planting project at the RSPB’s Haweswater reserve in Cumbria had resulted in many trees failing to grow “due to being planted incorrectly”. The report also identified “microplastics from the tree guards breaking down and polluting the watercourses”, which supply drinking water to 2.5 million people in Northwest England.
Furthermore, the report found that United Utilities and the RSPB ignored warnings from local communities that the scheme would fail before the money was wasted and that relations between the local communities and United Utilities and the RSPB are now at a near complete breakdown.
The report accuses UU and the RSPB of wasting millions in public money.
The report’s author, A.B. O’Rourke, said: “United Utilities is regarded as the country’s worst water polluter and yet here they are, with the help of the RSPB, pushing farmers into schemes that demand rapid radical changes without doing any small-scale trials beforehand. Nobody seems to be held responsible when the schemes fail and millions of pounds worth of public money is wasted. United Utilities has created an environmental disaster and then washed its hands of it.”
The report builds on the work of the ‘Better Outcomes on Upland Commons’ project, which was instigated in 2014 by King Charles when he was Prince of Wales to improve the management and conservation of English uplands. In this report, the King wrote, “I become increasingly distressed when I see opportunities to improve the condition of the upland habitats, their communities, businesses and stunning landscapes frustrated due to disagreements.”
This latest study at Haweswater indicates the situation has deteriorated even further since then.
Read the full report here.