Pupils Find River Stour Polluted, Plan to Lobby MP
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- Year Four pupils at Dedham Church of England Primary School in Essex found the River Stour "so polluted" after conducting water quality sampling with local charity PACE Manningtree.
- PACE (Practical Actions for Climate and the Environment), founded in nearby Manningtree in 2019, has been sampling the River Stour for three years using riverfly monitoring, which detects invertebrate life levels to quickly identify pollution or deterioration.
- The pupils plan to write to Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin asking for a storm drain on the nearby A12 to stop chemicals draining into the river.
- Dedham sits in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the Essex-Suffolk border, is immortalised by painter John Constable, and has reportedly recently seen increases in litter and bad parking.
- The Environment Agency welcomed the new Water (Special Measures) Act, which gives regulators more power to hold water companies accountable, but said weather, animal poo, road-run-off and littering all contribute to water quality issues.
Why it matters: The pupils' findings transform a local concern into a direct political ask — a storm drain on the A12 — while the Environment Agency's response broadens blame beyond water companies to road-run-off and littering, putting pressure on Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin and local authorities to act in a Constable-painted Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
