Just 14% of England's rivers, lakes and coastal waters in good ecological health.

By Steph Spyro, Deputy political editor and envionment editor

11:12, Thu, Aug 6, 2026 Updated: 11:27, Thu, Aug 6, 2026

The Water (Special Measures) Act Comes Into Force This Month

Sewage and agricultural run-off are among the pollutants devastaing the nation's waterways (Image: Getty)

The “terrible state” of England’s waterways has been branded a “national shame”, with new data showing just 14% of England’s waterways are in good ecological health. The first update in six years assessed the country’s 4,658 rivers, lakes, estuaries, canals and coastal waters on a range of standards including wildlife, water quality and the state of the physical habitat.

Just 14.3% of surface water bodies achieved an overall good ecological status in 2025, because of sewage spills, agricultural nutrients running off the land, and pollutants from cities and roads including litter, petrol and garden pesticides. Gary Carter, GMB union’s national officer, said: “The terrible state of England’s waterways is a badge of national shame - and privatised water companies must take a massive chunk of the blame."

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“For years they’ve been allowed to pump sewage into our rivers, streams and lakes, as massive dividends and fat cat salaries take priority over repairing crumbling infrastructure.”

Only 15% of rivers are achieving good ecological status or higher, the figures from the Environment Agency showed.

They also reveal England’s water bodies are falling far short of the Government target to restore 75% to good ecological status by 2027.

Ami McCarthy, Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, said: “These stark findings should start alarm bells ringing throughout the country.

“The government needs to take urgent action to turn off the chemicals that are destroying our land at the source. The scale of this crisis is sobering. Water companies must be made to take responsibility for their part, but pollution from agriculture is now one of the biggest drivers of environmental damage in UK rivers.

“It’s time for the government to work with farmers, providing proper support to rein in runaway use of fertilisers and pesticides, and boost nature-friendly practices."

The 2025 figures are slightly down from the 16.3% achieving good status in the last assessment in 2019, although the Environment Agency said they were not directly comparable as it had updated its methods, used a wider set of data and focused on places it suspected had problems.

Environment Secretary Angela Eagle said the results underlined the need for “wholesale change” across the water sector.

“Our local communities deserve to have clean local rivers and lakes,” she said.

“We’ve already introduced landmark legislation to hold water companies to account, secured record investment to help fix infrastructure, and are laser focused on long term reforms that will prevent future failures.

“We will drive forward a system that puts the public interest first with higher standards, better performance and cleaner waterways.”

A spokesman for industry body Water UK said: “As the Environment Agency has made clear, the health of rivers, lakes and waterways is shaped by many different factors, including agricultural nutrients and urban and transport run-off, as well as sewage.

“Water companies are investing a record £22 billion in environmental improvements by 2030.

“This will be the largest amount of money ever spent on the natural environment, and will help to secure our water supplies, support economic growth and end sewage entering our rivers and seas.”