Jeffrey Hancorn
Jeffrey owns a development site for 33 houses in Canon Pyon, a village in Herefordshire in the River Lugg catchment (which flows into the River Wye).
Posted on 23 May 2024
He described how he had been unable to achieve planning permission for the houses due to the phosphate moratorium.
This means that new developments in the area are on hold until the phosphate levels in the catchments have lowered to optimum levels. Jeffrey voiced his concern for how the pollution is affecting housing in the local community, noting the effect on young families who are unable to get onto the property ladder due to the shortage of houses.
Jeffrey said:
“My development site would have been built and people living in the homes if the river had been clean, and the Dutch phosphate moratorium had not been implemented.
“It has not only been the death of the river, but the death of communities.”
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River Wye claim
Residents of the Wye, Usk and Lugg River catchments are bringing a collective legal action against Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and companies within the Cargill UK poultry group (including Avara Foods), for their alleged role in polluting the region.
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Multi-million-pound legal claim launched to compensate people living near River Wye for pollution allegedly caused by chicken producers
A legal claim potentially worth hundreds of millions of pounds has been launched by law firm Leigh Day in a bid to compensate thousands of people living in the Wye catchment likely to have been affected by a major degradation of the River Wye and its tributaries in recent years.