Our friends at the ENDS Report submitted a Freedom of Information request to National Highways in March 2025 to ask for the locations of their outfalls that are at high-risk of causing pollution. The team at ENDS then analysed the results and found that over 250 of these high-risk outfalls are within 500 metres of a Site of Special Scientific Interest. You can read their report here: https://www.endsreport.com/article/1911417/250-high-risk-outfalls-discharging-toxic-cocktail-waterways-near-protected-sites
Sites of Special Scientific Interest are designated because they are areas that are of particular interest to science due to the rare species of fauna or flora they contain – or even important geological or physiological features that may lie in their boundaries. And yet 250 of these sites are being polluted with toxic highway runoff every time it rains.
Stormwater Shepherds UK were on site in March on the River Lune near Tebay where they found over a dozen outfalls off the M6, discharging straight into the river. This part of the River Lune is a famous fishing location and fish spawn here every Spring. There are also populations of protected white-clawed crayfish nearby.
National Highways were quick to point out that the proximity to these protected habitats and species is part of the reason that these outfalls are identified as posing a high-risk of pollution. But that risk assessment process has been in place for over 10 years and none of these 250 outfalls have had treatment schemes installed in that time. So their planning process allows them to identify an outfall off the motorway that is posing a high-risk of toxic pollution to a precious habitat and then do nothing about it for more that 10 years. Something has to change so that investment in the treatment of these high-risk outfall can be fast-tracked so that they pollution doesn’t continue unchecked for another decade or more.
