Government’s Water White Paper: Welcome signals, worrying gaps, and vital work still to do

Regional planning and the ‘missing middle’: named, but not yet built

One of the more positive directions signalled in the White Paper is identifying the need for regional planning to address the “missing middle” between national policy and local delivery. This recognition matters. Fragmented governance and disconnected funding streams have repeatedly undermined progress for rivers.

The current system is divided across dozens of plans, agencies, and funding streams and as a result, delivering improvements to rivers is slower, harder, and more expensive than it should be. The Independent Water Commission and the Office for Environmental Protection have repeatedly warned that without integrated planning and clear delivery routes; policy will continue to fail.

The White Paper gestures towards reform—proposing a Regional Water Planning Steering Group, rationalisation of existing plans, a little more funding for Catchment Partnerships and longer‑term planning horizons. These are welcome signals. But they fall far short of what is needed.

To be effective, regional planning bodies must:

• be independent, not housed within the regulator,

• have clear authority to direct funding across sectors; integrating water company investment, flood risk management budgets, agri‑environment schemes, and nature recovery funding,

• coordinate delivery at the catchment scale, and

• provide the strategic backbone for local delivery through Catchment Partnerships.

Without these powers, regional planning bodies will remain talking shops rather than drivers of real‑world change.

The government’s reluctance to create new bodies is understandable. But placing planning within the regulator risks repeating the Environment Agency’s longstanding structural conflict: regulators should regulate; planners should plan.

If the government wants to meet its legal targets for water quality and nature recovery, ambitious regional governance must form the backbone of the new system—and it must start now. With PR29 already in motion, we cannot afford another cycle of fragmented planning and misaligned budgets.

A new regulator: a step forward, but not yet a turning point

The headline proposal—a new water regulator—has attracted significant attention. The intention to reset the regulatory landscape is much needed and is welcome. But the outline provided raises more questions than answers.

• First, the costs. Transitioning to a new regulatory body will involve substantial restructuring, redundancy, and parallel running costs. The White Paper is silent on how these will be funded. Without clarity, there is a real risk that resources will be diverted away from environmental outcomes and into administrative upheaval.

• Second, cross‑border governance. Ofwat currently covers England and Wales, while environmental responsibilities are split between the Environment Agency (EA), Natural England, and Natural Resources Wales. The White Paper does not explain how a single regulator will operate for catchments and water companies that straddle these jurisdictions without creating new confusion or weakening accountability.

• Third, the glaring omission of flooding. Flooding is one of the most urgent water‑related risks facing communities and the economy. Yet it is entirely absent from the proposed duties for the regulator and the regional systems planner. This is a profound oversight. Any modern water regulator and planner must be equipped to address the full water cycle—including flood risk, drought resilience and pollution prevention, through integrated catchment management.

• Fourth, independence. Public trust in water governance has been eroded by years of political interference, including past ministerial instructions not to enforce agricultural pollution rules. A new regulator must be given clear direction by government, but the mistakes of political interference must not be repeated.

• Finally, culture and purpose. The White Paper emphasises asset management, engineering oversight, and new technical roles. But it is unclear whether these reforms will support or hinder nature‑based solutions. A regulator focused on micromanaging engineering assets rather than wider outcomes for society will not deliver the systemic, catchment‑scale change we need.

A new name and a new structure are not enough. What is required is a new culture, new powers, and a new approach—one that prioritises outcomes, enables innovation, and removes barriers to nature‑based solutions.

Catchment partnerships: recognised, but still underpowered

We are pleased to see a commitment to double funding for Catchment Partnerships—a recognition of their vital role in convening local stakeholders and delivering practical improvements.

However, doubling current funding still leaves partnerships operating on a shoestring. At a recent Rivers Trust event, partnership hosts agreed that £100,000 per partnership is the minimum needed to deliver effective catchment planning and cost-effective solutions involving a greater range of decision makers, as set out in the White Paper. This level of investment would:

• enable recruitment of full‑time staff to develop high-quality plans and partnerships.

• significantly increase delivery capacity,

• send a strong signal to external funders, and

• unlock even greater match‑funding.

Catchment Partnerships must be embedded as a core component of the new system, working hand‑in‑hand with strengthened regional governance. Without this, the government’s ambitions for integrated water management will remain out of reach.

Cleaner waters: agriculture and land use are still isolated from the wider system

There is welcome recognition in the White Paper that cleaner water cannot be delivered by water companies alone and that preventing pollution at source (termed pre-pipe solutions) is essential. Measures on private sewerage, misconnections, highway runoff and outfall mitigation all point in the right direction. Yet agriculture and land use, by far the largest source of diffuse pollution and a major factor in managing flooding and drought risk, remains treated as largely separate from the wider water system. There is mention of a review of agricultural pollution regulation, but no reference to the integrated landscape recovery required if we are to restore our catchments to good health.

The paper tackles only a few standalone measures rather than considering the full integration in planning and regulation that is required. New standards and permitting for cattle are a start, but what about highly polluting wastes from pigs and poultry and the potential for funding farmers to deliver wholesale land use change which would tackle nature’s decline, sequester carbon and combat flood and drought risks.

An ongoing siloed approach will not deliver resilient landscapes. Making space for water through healthy soils, restored floodplains and functioning river corridors is central to solving water quality, flood risk and water scarcity together. That requires integration of planning, funding and incentives across farming, water and nature policy.

Firm but fair enforcement must go hand in hand with properly rewarding farmers for delivering public and environmental benefit.

Monitoring: a missed opportunity for system-wide insight and rebuilding trust

The move away from Operator Self-Monitoring and towards open monitoring is positive, but the monitoring proposals remain weak and under ambitious. They miss the scale of the current gap in understanding and take no account of the power and value of engaged communities and the opportunity to rebuild trust with the very people who have suffered through the failures in our water system and have been the driving force behind the current reform. Currently millions of pounds of investment are based on incomplete, poorly planned data collection and the current proposals don’t look to resolve that.

We would like to see explicit recognition of the role of citizen science, building on the success of CaSTCo and the thousands of volunteers now generating high-quality data across the country. Using these data alongside regulatory and new technologies can provide the weight of evidence required to direct cost-effective solutions confidently to where they are needed most. This is a proven model, and the government should showcase and build on it.

Chemicals: a major gap

Chemical pollution is one of the most urgent and least understood threats to our freshwater ecosystems. Yet the White Paper offers little more than acknowledgement.

We urgently need:

• comprehensive monitoring,

• recognition of the scale of the PFAS problem in the water environment

• upstream controls, including bans where necessary,

• extended producer responsibility, so that managing industrial chemical discharges and contaminants in sludges are paid for by Big Pharma polluters, and

• the long-promised national chemicals strategy.

Without these, chemical pollution will continue to undermine ecological recovery and harm human health for decades to come.

Conclusion: a foundation to build on, but not the blueprint we need

The Water White Paper sets out some positive intentions and useful language. It acknowledges system failure and gestures towards solutions. But it does not yet provide the sector with the blueprint required to deliver change at the pace and scale rivers need.

The lack of detail, weak integration and slow timelines are serious concerns. Transition arrangements can’t come soon enough, with PR29 planning already underway, delay risks locking in failure.

The next phase is crucial to:

• embed independent, empowered regional planning,

• anchor nature-based solutions at the core of the system,

• create a well-resourced, unified regulator free from government micro-management,

• properly resource catchment partnerships, and

• create monitoring and chemical controls fit for the scale of the challenge.

This White Paper could still be the foundation for genuine reform—but only if ambition is raised, detail strengthened, funding secured from the Treasury and delivery mechanisms made real.

The Rivers Trust stands ready to work with government, regulators, water companies, farmers and communities to shape a system that delivers cleaner, healthier, more resilient rivers. Our rivers cannot wait another generation.

- Tessa Wardley, Mark Lloyd