The UK government is consulting on the expansion of the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to cover coastal and estuarine waters. Defra wants to know what you think about these changes, including:

• expanding the targets in the Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan to cover coastal and estuarine waters
• developing an ecological standard for coastal and estuarine waters
• whether any further areas should be added to the current list of high priority sites listed in the plan

The consultation is open until 24 July. Read more in the Defra press release.

However, the Guardian has revealed that England’s storm overflows taskforce, promoted by ministers as evidence they are taking issue seriously, has only met once in the last year.

The storm overflows taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has only met once in the last year, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The group, which was promoted by ministers as evidence that they were taking the issue of raw sewage discharges by water companies seriously, is supposed to meet fortnightly, according to its mission statement.

But in response to a freedom of information request by the Good Law Project, officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the taskforce had only met once in the last year.