People’s Assembly: How can we safeguard our water?

As part of the Our River, Our Sea! season, Lewes Climate Hub held a People’s Assembly, inviting anyone to come and share their views on what’s needed to protect our water from pollution, drought and other threats. Jane Carpenter looks at what was suggested.

The ‘Our River, Our Sea’ season in July covered a lot of ground – from protecting the health of our river to reintroducing native river and marine species, to analysing plastic pollution. So it only seemed right that we ask local people for their views on many of these issues.

A People’s Assembly is a structured way for a group of people to discuss an issue and make decisions collectively so that all voices are heard and valued.  Around 30 members of the public chose to join us on a sunny Saturday afternoon to contribute their thoughts.

Expert insight

To kickstart the assembly and provide some context, we had informative presentations by Matthew Bird (Love Our Ouse director and ex-LDC cabinet sustainability officer) and James Murray, (cabinet lead for sustainability and carbon neutrality at Eastbourne District Council).

Matthew focused on Love Our Ouse’s work to secure legal rights for the river. James covered a range of water issues that he has encountered in his role, including flood management, water pollution from agriculture (both from pesticides and animal waste), the impacts of urban run-off and, of course, the challenge to manage sewage dumping.

Participants then got into three groups to discuss the water issues they were most concerned about and identify potential actions to address them – from using our voices to put pressure on water companies, developers, farmers and local government to taking direct and practical action as citizens

Here’s a summary of the ideas and suggestions raised, which have been fed back to Lewes Town and District Councils:

At the local level:

• Increase citizen water quality testing: Involve more people in testing water from the River Ouse in collaboration with Love Our Ouse and Sussex University in order to increase data on water quality.
• Ask Southern Water to grant more fishing licences: This improves public access to the river.
• Have campaigns to encourage grey water and rainwater use in order to safeguard local water reserves and reduce pressure on sewage systems during periods of heavy rainfall.
• Encourage our MP to support and speak up for the Climate & Nature (CAN) Bill. 

At the national level:

• Renationalise water companies: Create a blueprint and mission statement for an efficient company. Compensation would not be appropriate due to the water companies’ huge dividends and illegal, long-term lack of infrastructure investment.
• Build infrastructure to maximise water reuse: Learn from the systems used by other countries already living under water stress.
• Regulate developers, with planning permission subject to adequate water infrastructure and impose fines on companies and CEOs where necessary.
• Create legal rights for nature: Including the river and introduce into criminal law the category of ‘ecocide’ – the knowing or reckless destruction of an environment or ecosystem – with criminal penalties.
• Readopt pre-2016 minimum legal water quality standards.

We have many partner groups already doing amazing work to highlight these problems and take action locally, including Love Our Ouse, Lewes Railway Land Wildlife Trust, Strandliners, Wildflower Lewes, Nevill 2030, Depot Cinema, and Wilder Ouse. Please read about or contact them via our website.

Lewes Climate Hub’s next People’s Assembly will focus on sustainable food systems and will take place in October as part of our Food Season.