A new Bedford Borough Water Management Alliance will monitor river pollution and help to trace “where the naughtiness comes from” Bedford’s mayor has said.
The council’s executive this week (19 February) heard there hasn’t been a water management alliance in place which means there wasn’t a link between flood risk management, water quality, and water resources.
Mayor Tom Wootton (Conservative) said the monitoring of water quality in the River Great Ouse will be carried out by coordinating the various “lovely people” currently carrying out tests along the river.
He didn’t expand on this but local charity BedsGOVET, a local charity has been testing water quality in the River Great Ouse through Bedfordshire for well over two years already, and launched their Don’t Lose the Ouse campaign last year.
Read: Standing room only as Don’t Lose the Ouse campaign launched
However, the Mayor says he’d like to see more testing carried out.
“I’d like to have far more testing of our water quality in the river to actually try and pin down how good it is when it comes in, and how good when it goes out,” he said.
“And if we have it as regular as I want down the river, we can actually start to see where pollution and problems come into the river from the various brooks.
“Therefore we can start allocating our resources to push back up those brooks to see where the naughtiness comes from,” he said.
The mayor added that flood risk management will be through an “all-agency” approach, including the Environment Agency, Defra and the NFU.
“Because this won’t go ahead unless land owners are friendly to it and it won’t happen unless Defra comes to the party, with the EA, [and] with money,” he said.
Alan D Horn BSc BA(Hons) MBA, chair of BedsGOVET welcomed the news.
“BedsGOVET endorses any initiative to accelerate the cleaning of this river,” he said.
“We regularly report levels of E.coli that are hazardous to human health and we are seeing excessive of excessive nitrates in the river that are as much as 85% above safety levels (OFWAT data)
“Over the last two years our testing programme has been helped by a number of significant donations including the Wells family and Bedford Borough Council.
“We are working closely with The Head of Environment – Paul Pace who we have to thank for his understanding of what we are aiming to deliver on behalf of Bedford residents.
“We hope that our involvement in this initiative will help us to further accelerate dealing with the problems that mark the Great Ouse as the fifth most polluted river in England”.
The first meeting of the Bedford Borough Water Management Alliance has been proposed for February 28, 2025.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
Additional reporting by
Paul Hutchinson, Bedford Independent
