A critical plan designed to protect and improve Northern Ireland’s waters needs to be strengthened and implemented without further delay, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) urges in a report released today.
As part of its role to monitor how environmental laws are working in practice the OEP carried out a review of the key legislation regarding water quality – the Water Framework Directive (WFD) Northern Ireland (NI) Regulations – and how they are being implemented by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) through River Basin Management Planning.
The WFD NI Regulations require DAERA to develop and roll out River Basin Management Plans every six years. The latest River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) was due by December 2021, but this draft plan has yet to be finalised to help drive much-needed water quality improvement across Northern Ireland’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters.
Natalie Prosser, OEP Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said: “Our report finds that although the approach of the WFD NI Regulations is broadly sound, it is not being implemented or delivering as it should for Northern Ireland’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters. This paints a very worrying picture.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have far to go to see the serious consequences when water quality is neglected, as the ongoing crisis at Lough Neagh shows.
“Our report identifies the urgent need for DAERA to publish the latest RBMP and put it into action. These plans are important because they set out the objectives and measures needed to protect and improve waters in Northern Ireland.”
The OEP’s report also recommends that the draft RBMP should be strengthened by including specific environmental objectives for all individual water bodies, with a tangible and detailed programme of measures to meet these objectives in practice and the scale of funding needed to do so.
The CEO added: “We offer recommendations on how the current draft plan should be improved so it will have a greater chance of success when implemented. We hope the Northern Ireland Executive and DAERA will find these recommendations helpful.”
According to the latest data some things are getting worse rather than better with just 31% of surface water bodies in Northern Ireland in a good ecological condition. This is a fall of 1% from the corresponding figure of 32% in 2015. DAERA has set a working target to bring 70% of water bodies to ‘good status’ by 2027. However, the failure to implement the WFD NI Regulations effectively means this target and others are now unlikely to be met, according to the OEP report.
Ms Prosser said: “As things stand, we assess that the 2027 target is likely to be missed by a considerable margin. We also assess that Northern Ireland is not on track to meet the Environmental Objectives in the WFD NI Regulations.
“This failure to meet the 2027 target will then have a detrimental knock-on effect on the Northern Ireland Executive’s other environmental aims, such as the ‘excellent water quality’ goal in the draft Environment Strategy and ‘thriving, resilient and connected nature and wildlife’ goal .”
She added: “There needs to be stronger leadership from the Northern Ireland Executive in implementing the WFD NI Regulations. It must speed up and scale up its efforts to protect and improve its waters.”
The OEP makes 16 recommendations to the Northern Ireland Executive, Northern Ireland Assembly and DAERA, designed to increase the prospects of protecting and improving the water environment. These include recommendations in relation to DAERA’s 2027 objectives, and to strengthen the legislative framework and its governance and application in the longer term.
While not wishing to see any further delay in the completion of the draft plan, the OEP has also recommended that DAERA consider how best to engage in a new public consultation. This would be to bridge earlier engagement gaps and to produce a supplementary delivery plan to support the final RBMP if needed.
In the course of preparing the report, the OEP identified a number of areas where DAERA may not have complied with the requirements of the regulations. These include a lack of environmental objectives for individual water bodies and the adequacy of the programme of measures in the draft RBMP.
DAERA now has three months to lay its response to the report before the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Ms Prosser added: “This gives DAERA a chance to set out its own view on these issues and any action it intends to take. Once we have seen that response and any further relevant information, we will decide what further steps may need to be taken.”
You can read the report by clicking on the 'Download report' button on this page.
By clicking on the buttons below it, you can also access three contractor reports. These reports have supported the development of the OEP final reports on the Water Framework Directive Regulations and have been used by OEP to support and inform our findings. The views expressed in the reports are those of the contractors that delivered them and not of the OEP.
DAERA responded to our report on 2 December 2024. The response, available here, will be considered in detail before any further steps are decided.
