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Just checking water pollution from farms. so what about in wales? natural resources wales are the environmental regulator, but while they do inspect some farms, they don t have a full time, fully funded team like in scotland. speaks welsh. in charge of water quality at nrw is sian williams. we know there are problem areas in the wye catchment. have you done what the scots are doing? so what we ve done is a lot is targeting different kinds of farms, so we had a dairy project that we ran for a couple of years, which we re now looking at how we can evolve that dairy project into looking at different catchments and looking more around nutrients and phosphates as well. it s key having people on the ground to deliver it is so important. and as i said, that s why ....
We are looking into notjust external funded programmes that are temporary, but we re also looking at our baseline funding with welsh government. your budgets have gone down about, by a third, i think, since its inception. does it sometimes come down to resources? we would like to do more. we will do more. we can work with others as well. the welsh government has been phasing in new laws to tackle water pollution from farms, and is currently talking to nrw about resources. nrw told us they have yet to receive any funding to enforce those new rules. this is a simple solution around investment and funding into that. scottish government have invested in that and we need to look at how we can achieve that in wales. we can put in as much change in policy and legislation as we like. it is only as good as the strength of our regulation and enforcement ....
We know we had an issue around too many poultry farms, for instance, being put in the same place. so we need to work with our local authorities. do you agree there are too many poultry farms in wye? we saw certainly in the powys area, in the previous administration there, we saw a lot of planning permissions allowed. but that it was your government that gave the grants for those poultry farms. but what i m saying is, you ve got to make sure that the local authority needs to know the cumulative impact of all these poultry farms. so you blame local authority? no, i m not! i m not trying to blame anybody. what i m saying is, it s about working together to make sure that, where you can get, perhaps, quicker wins, i see that obviously it s a long term issue, but we look for for quick gains too. nrw, which oversees much of this, has had its funding consistently cut. if nobody s policing things like muck spreading, are you prepared to tell farmers that they can t spread muck on their land b ....
No, i m not! i m not trying to blame anybody. what i m saying is, it s about working together to make sure that, where you can get, perhaps, quicker wins, i see that obviously it s a long term issue, but we look for for quick gains too. nrw, which oversees much of this, has had its funding consistently cut. if nobody s policing things like muck spreading, are you prepared to tell farmers that they can t spread muck on their land because there s too much phosphate in the river already? well, we have to look at the regulations. we have to look at the individualfarmers, and one of the things we are bringing forward in relation to delaying the one regulation, is a licensing scheme. now if a farmer wants to apply for a licensing scheme and we think it s not pertinent for that farm, we can do that. but that s from here going forward. a lot of this is legacy phosphorus. that is part of the problem. we are where we are now. and if that s part of it, obviously we can look at it. do you take res ....
110w. seeing a difference in nutrient concentration on the river course isn t going to happen overnight. it s going to take a number of years for for improvements in reductions in nitrate and phosphate levels, but it can be done. but it s something that probably has to be started sooner rather than later. scotland s environmental regulator spends £900,000 a year on a dedicated team of 12 inspectors and support staff, just checking water pollution from farms. so what about in wales? natural resources wales of the environmental regulator, but while they do inspect some farms, they don t have a full time, fully funded team like in scotland. speaks welsh. in charge of water quality at nrw is ....