Legal Update: December 2025
It has been a busy three months since our September update. We’ve successfully fought off Southern Water’s drought order application for the River Test and battled in the High Court against a housing development that will cause increased sewage pollution, as well as appearing at the Information Tribunal appeal to challenge the farmed salmon industry’s “greenwashing”.
Buckinghamshire: Sewage treatment capacity for new houses
We’re considering whether to appeal a decision by the High Court to dismiss its claim against Buckinghamshire Council for approving planning conditions for a large development in Maids Moreton. Read the decision here: Wildfish, R (On the Application Of) v Buckinghamshire Council [2025] EWHC 3060 (Admin) (20 November 2025).
Across England and Wales, there is a rush to put in housing without considering the impacts on our sewage system, which is at full capacity, and the inevitable increased demand for water. This is particularly worrying given the government’s push for growth and the reining back of environmental protections under the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
With that in mind, we launched the judicial review challenge to Buckinghamshire Council in May 2025. We believe it was wrong for the council to water down planning conditions for a massive housing estate and swap them into another planning permission when it was plainly out of time and didn’t deal with Anglian’s failing sewage system first. The council treated it like a fait accompli: the local sewage company, Anglian Water, was bound to allow the developer to link its pipes to Anglian’s sewers, however badly the sewage works were performing.
But we say that matters because more houses connected to a failing sewage works create more sewage pollution, and this will lead to further damage to the Great Ouse.
We spent three days in court last month. The judge has now decided to dismiss our judicial review challenge, but we are looking at appealing the decision to the Court of Appeal.
The case may be highly technical, but it really comes down to whether houses should be built when there is no capacity to deal with the sewage and when the council has plainly failed to take this into account.
Southern Water: Drought order application
Our water resource work culminated in a challenge to Southern Water’s Drought Order application for the River Test, which would have allowed Southern Water to take more water in low flows for public supply. The water company withdrew its application after a one-day hearing in which we (WildFish) (the sole objector taking part) submitted that the water company did not need the Order and that its assessment of environmental damage and compensation was inadequate.
We’ll return to the report’s findings in due course.
Soil Association Certification
Earlier this year, the Information Commissioner agreed with us that Soil Association Certification Ltd (SAC) should provide inspection records for “organic” salmon farms. SAC has appealed this decision which would require the organisation to provide copies of inspection reports of so-called ‘organic’ salmon farms (which we believe create the same issues for wild fish conservation as ‘conventional’ fish farms).
We have now taken part as the “Second Respondent” in the appeal hearing which was heard on 19th and 20th November. We are currently awaiting the decision.
Whatever the outcome, as we reported in previous updates, nothing short of the Soil Association ending its certification of so-called organic salmon farming will be sufficient to repair the damage it is currently doing to its own reputation.
Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) of Scottish farmed salmon
The SAC case is just one of our challenges against the salmon farming industry’s “greenwashing” tactics. We’re also appealing against the use of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) label for farmed salmon.
At first, our appeal failed in the tribunal at the start of the year. But soon afterwards, the Competition Appeals Tribunal reached an interim decision in a “cartel” case between the supermarkets and the salmon farming industry concluding that there was likely to be no significant difference between Scottish farmed salmon and Norwegian farmed salmon which we said undermined the case for PGI status. We then applied to DEFRA for cancellation of Scottish Salmon PGI.
However, in their decision notice in October, DEFRA refused the call for cancellation, saying vaguely that WildFish did not have a “legitimate interest” and that our grounds were “unfounded”. This is now being appealed too, with a hearing expected early next year.
Pesticide use in farming: More tribunal hearings
In our battle for transparency over pesticide pollution of UK rivers, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) appealed against the Information Commissioner’s decision that they should disclose farmers’ pesticide use records in Carmarthenshire. The Information Commissioner then went on to agree with us recently in a separate case that the HSE should provide pesticide records in the Dee catchment. The subsequent decision by the Information Commissioner has now been appealed by the HSE and the cases will be heard together in the New Year.
WildFish has joined the appeals as a Second Respondent and will be preparing to fight for transparency and to make sure that the HSE releases information so that we can find out what is going into our rivers.
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