UK's biggest ever environmental pollution claim reaches High Court

One of the UK's largest chicken producers and a water company will be in the High Court on Monday accused of polluting the rivers Wye, Lugg and Usk.

More than 4,500 people who live or work near the rivers along the Welsh-Englishborder have signed up take part in what's being seen as a landmark case against Avara Foods and Welsh Water.

Their lawyers say it's the biggest case ever brought in the UK over environmental pollution in terms of the number of claimants and its geographical spread.

Avara, which dominates chicken farming in the area, and Welsh Water, have respectively called the claims "misconceived" and "misguided".

The River Wye is one of the UK's longest and most celebrated rivers. But in recent years those living nearby have complained that it regularly turns green in the summer and has become smelly and slimy.

The group's legal claim blames the spreading of chicken manure on farmers' fields, and also sewage spills. It demands that action be taken to improve the state of the rivers, and compensation be paid to those whose lives and businesses have been affected.

The case has its first procedural hearing at the High Court in London on Monday and Justine Evans the lead claimant will be there.

"That just isn't what this river should look like and feel like and smell like" Ms Evans, a wildlife filmmaker, told BBC News on the banks of the Wye, not far from her home. "There's been systemic failure going on. And so in light of that, it seemed like the only course of action is to take legal action and make polluters pay."

Campaigners have long pointed at the rapid expansion of industrial chicken farming near the River Wye. At present there are about 24 million chickens being raised in the catchment area – usually in huge sheds. That's about a quarter of the UK's entire chicken population.

Until recently manure from the Wye's chicken sheds was spread as cheap fertiliser on nearby arable farmers fields. The group legal claim alleges that the nutrients from the manure frequently washed off the soil into waterways leading to high levels of phosphorus, nitrogen and bacteria entering the rivers. In warm weather that nutrient load caused the water to turn green, so called "algal blooming".

In 2023, Natural England, the UK government's official advisory body rated the condition of the River Wye as "unfavourable - declining". The follow-up River Wye Action Plan in 2024 blamed excessive nutrients from farming and wastewater discharges as well as climate change for increasing the water temperature and reducing the water flow in hot dry summers.

Legal firm Leigh Day are bringing the case on a no-win no-fee basis. They say that that though it was arable farmers who spread the manure, Avara Foods and its subsidiary Freemans of Newent should be held responsible for the consequences.

"The poultry companies that are being sued in this claim knew what the outcome of their operations were going to be when they expanded the poultry production in this area," Celine O'Donovan, one of the Leigh Day lawyers told BBC News.