Environmental group raises legal concerns over interpretation and enforcement of pollution rules

River Action has sent a formal legal letter to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) requesting clarification on two aspects of its recently published new Statutory Guidance on the Farming Rules for Water.

The environmental charity is concerned that parts of the guidance may not fully reflect recent legal developments, including a 2024 High Court judgment focusing on the Farming Rules of Water and how they must be used to reduce agricultural pollution. 

River Action believes this will risk confusion over what the rules mean and how they need to be enforced, particularly in relation to the autumn spreading of manure and other nutrient applications which is of significant interest and importance to farmers. Recent commentary about the new guidance in the agricultural trade press already shows a variety of interpretations of the guidance across the farming community, some of which are misleading.

In the letter, sent as part of a Pre-Action Protocol process, River Action asks DEFRA to consider:

• Whether the guidance should require the Environment Agency to take enforcement action where farmers breach the rules, rather than suggesting that enforcement “may” follow after advisory steps.
• Whether the guidance accurately reflects the High Court’s clarification that nutrient applications must be planned so that they match crop and soil needs at the time of application, not averaged over time, so that autumn spreading will only be permitted in clearly identifiable cases. The group explains in its letter that a number of articles in the farming press may already have misinterpreted the new guidance and its implications for autumn spreading.

River Action’s Head of Legal Emma Dearnaley said: “DEFRA’s new guidance is clearly an improvement on its inadequate predecessor, but it still creates ambiguity for farmers and appears to lack the ambition necessary to end the blight of river pollution from agriculture. Farmers need clear, practical rules they can rely on – not vague advice that causes confusion. 

“DEFRA should spell out that excessive spreading of manure or nutrients in the autumn will only be allowed in clear-cut cases and that breaking the rules will lead to sanctions where advice has not achieved compliance. Everyone will benefit when the rules are clear and fairly applied – especially our rivers and the communities that depend on them.”

This letter follows River Action’s 2024 judicial review, in which the High Court ruled that the interpretation of River Action and the Environment Agency that the words “the needs of the soil and crop on the land” in the Farming Rules for Water referred to the need at the time of application (instead of the National Farmers’ Union’s and DEFRA’s interpretation that the words could encompass the need over a crop cycle or crop rotation) were correct. 

That case, along with an investigation by the Office for Environmental Protection, focused on the controversial practice of autumn manure spreading, which has been linked to harmful nutrient runoff and poor water quality in UK rivers.

DEFRA is due to provide its response by 10 July 2025.

A copy of River Action’s Pre-Action Protocol letter is available here and its Appendix is here.