Image description: a kingfisher flying just above the water of a river lined with mossy boulders. River Kent, Kendal, UK. Image by Jonny Gios on Unsplash.
As reported by the BBC, a grassroots movement is gaining momentum across England as local authorities declare legal rights for rivers, despite Parliament having no plans to enshrine waterways as living entities with legal status. Seven councils across the south-east and Hampshire have now passed “rights of rivers” declarations, granting their local waterways rights including the right to flow, native biodiversity and freedom from pollution.
Lewes District Council became the first East Sussex authority to declare river rights in February 2024, two years after committing to the process. Wealden District Council followed in July, with Rother District Council endorsing the declaration in September. In Hampshire, Test Valley Borough Council and Southampton City Council passed similar motions in July, while East Hampshire District Council recognised river rights in November.
Transforming how councils approach policy and planning
The declarations carry no legal force -only Parliament can grant rivers the same legal status as persons. However, supporters argue the motions are transforming how councils approach policy and planning decisions.
“These motions are everything and nothing,” Paul Powlesland, co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, told the BBC. “If you don’t act upon them and go out there and make those rights a reality, they’re meaningless. But if you do do that, they are utterly transformative in how humans in our society relate to rivers.”
Rother councillor Nicola McLaren, who proposed her council’s motion alongside Green colleague Sue Burton, explained the charter helps review policies including the local plan influencing planning decisions and climate strategy action plans. “We’re trying to behave as if the rivers do have these rights so that we can use that thinking and that framework to underpin our decision making.”
Building a movement
Emily Julier, counsel knowledge lawyer at Hogan Lovells who has helped draft motions, highlighted that river rights have proven “quite a unifying topic across the political divide,” with support spanning Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green-run authorities.
Emma Montlake, director at campaign group Love Our Ouse and Environmental Law Foundation lawyer, emphasised the community-led nature of the movement, with town and parish councils endorsing charters to create a “grassroots” approach.
Maidstone Borough Council leader Stuart Jeffery said the authority is “working on a range of measures to embed the rights of nature into our policies and practices,” including supporting a nine-day “source to sea pilgrimage” of the River Medway organised by campaigners in July.
Campaigners aiming high
The movement emerges against a backdrop of comprehensive river degradation – The Rivers Trust’s 2024 report found none of England’s rivers in good overall health. While the government states it is “taking decisive action to clean up England’s rivers, lakes and seas,” it has no plans for rights-based legislation.
New Zealand famously granted the Whanganui River legal personhood in 2017, but Powlesland acknowledges national legislation in England “feels like a long way away.” Campaigner Zofia Page from Friends of the River Medway set an ambitious target: securing rights declarations from 75% of UK councils within a year. “Obviously it’s a hugely ambitious number,” she said, “but if there’s a snowball effect with this it could lead to that, definitely.”