the office for environmental protection, the official watchdog, has been taking a closer look and has a scathing verdict on the government's efforts to improve water quality. we found the legal framework to be basically sound, thankfully, but it's the way that it's being interpreted and implemented that is the issue. it is really being done poorly and that means that government is very unlikely to achieve its ambitions for our waters. in fact, it's very likely to miss by a large margin the targets it set for the quality of waters which were to be met by 2027. so there's some really serious issues here. the oep says the government's plans lack detail, commitment and adequate funding and that plans for polluted river basins are too generic. what we've seen over the last 25 years since the water framework directive was launched is that our rivers have really flatlined. we haven't made any strategic improvement to the condition of our rivers despite lots of new initiatives and small packages of funding. what we need to do is to take a much more fundamental approach and really change cours

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the office for environmental protection, a statutory public body, says government targets to improveby a "large margin." here's our environment correspondent, jonah fisher. the government has through the water framework directive, committed itself to improving the health of england's damaged rivers, lakes and coastal waters. at the moment, only 16% of them have a good ecological status and the target for 2027 of 77% looks a long way away. so what's going on? the office for environmental protection, the official watchdog, has been taking a closer look and has delivered a scathing verdict on the government's efforts to improve water quality. we found the legal framework to be basically sound, thankfully, but it's the way that it's being interpreted and implemented that is the issue. it is really being done poorly and that means that government is very unlikely to achieve its ambitions for our waters. in fact, it's very likely to miss by a large margin the targets it set for the quality of waters which were to be met by 2027. so there's some really serious issues here. the 0ep says the