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It s a long term issue, 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 individual farmers, 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 that 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 responsibility for what s happening to our rivers? well, of course, i m part of the solution, just as other people are. we all have to take responsibility, each and every one of us. the scale of the problem is ....
From 34% in 2010 to 99% now. seeing a difference in nutrient concentration in the river course isn t going to happen overnight. it s going to take a number of years 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 staffjust 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. in charge of water quality at nrw is sian williams. we know there are problem areas in the wye catchment. ....
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 need to look 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 that 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 responsibility for what s happening to ou ....
Have you done what the scots are doing? so, what we ve done 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 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 by a third, i think, since 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 ....
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 against that policy. if there is little enforcement of the new regulations in wales, it would stand to farmers to follow the rules as best they can. this chicken farm rears birds for their meat. this year, it was granted permission to double its capacity to 180,000 broiler chickens. once that new shed is built, this farm s muck will be taken off site to an anaerobic digester. he is following the rules. ....