Citizens’ Jury for Windermere Catchment (Cumbria) - Information page - Environment Agency

Contact

Liz Cheslett- Davey

(Catchment Co-ordinator)

Environment Programme (EPE)

correspondence.cmblnc@environment-agency.gov.uk

Overview

The Rethinking Water Citizens’ Jury was put together by the Environment Agency and a Local Advisory Group working with the Involve Foundation; an independant charity, who acted as the main point of contact for panel members throughout the process.

The Panel, which took place over four days in March 2022, debated local issues, shared ideas and questioned experts on all aspects of the water environment in the Windermere catchment. This project brought together people from all walks of life, selected to be representative of local communities demography, shared information with them and asked them to produce recommendations to help shape discussions and decisions about the future management of the catchment.

Panel members were independently selected from applicants who responded to letters of invitation. These letters were sent to five thousand randomly selected addresses, from the Royal Mail database, within communities local to the lake.

The Panel were tasked with examining how communities and individuals engage with the Lake. The local advisory group asked the Panel to consider ‘How do we do more to improve water quality in the Windermere Catchment whilst sustaining our communities and the economy?’

The Windermere Panel’s Local Advisory Group was made up of a range of organisations from public, private and charity sectors as follows:

ACT (Actions with Communities) in Cumbria
Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership
Environment Agency
Freshwater Biological Association
Lake District Foundation
Lake District National Park Authority
National Farmers Union
National Trust
South Cumbia Rivers Trust
South Lakeland District Council
United Utilities

As well as advisory group organisations the Windermere Panel heard perspectives and evidence from Cumbria Tourism, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, University of Cumbria, Swim the Lakes (a local business), and Windermere Lake Recovery Community Interest Company to ensure a broad and balanced basis for their exploration of key issues, potential future challenges and changes to the lake and its surrounds. Finally, they produced recommendations that will be used to guide the future of managing water for us and our partners.

The findings, in the form of recommendations written and recorded by the panel members - Video of the recommendations form Windermere

A summary of the final six recommendations from the Windermere Citizens’ Panel were:

Empower Organisational Action - Many organisations involved; collaboration is key. Recommend one organisation urgently appointed lead body.
Education and Enforcement about Pollutants - Education then enforcement. High profile campaign, positive incentives and enforcement of existing regulations and environmental monitoring.
Fixed Phosphorous Targets - Specify a SMART (Specific-Measurable Achievable-Realistic-Time-specific) target for phosphate.
Sustainable Tourism Infrastructure - All stakeholders need to work together to build a sustainable infrastructure plan with SMART targets.
Septic Tank Improvement - Set strict local measured standards of all discharges (with special regards to phosphate outputs) of all privately owned systems.
Incentivise all Actors to Pollute Less – Set up special status.

The findings from the juries will inform our future water management plans. This includes the North West River Basin Management Plan.

At a local level the Panel’s recommendation are already being fed into and considered by a newly formalised Love Windermere Partnership; led by the Environment Agency. Several of the Panel’s recommendations had been identified by organisation with responsibilities in the catchment as requiring collaborative focused work. The Love Windermere Partnership is developing work under the following themes: