NRW accused of ‘professional ineptitude’ over River Dee data

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

Natural Resources Wales should be broken up and held to professional standards after its use of unreliable data potentially caused economic harm to a Welsh city, according to a councillor.

More than 100 planning applications have been left in limbo as a result of the phosphates issue, which has prevented developments in some areas around the River Dee being approved due to the impact of sewage and waste water on phosphorous levels.

High phosphorous levels can harm biodiversity, promote algal blooms and consumes the oxygen in the water.

Now Wrexham Cllr Hugh Jones has launched a scathing criticism of NRW after it transpired that a single sample from the River Dee in March last year which showed a spike in phosphorous was the reason the river continued to be classed as ‘failing’.

That is despite all other NRW samples – and 36 separate samples from the Environment Agency – all showing the river in acceptable health.

NRW concluded that the unusual result was likely caused by a brief snow event in an otherwise dry winter causing a short burst of excess surface water run-off – but it still rated the river as failing.

In a meeting to discuss an update report on the issue that revealed this data, Cllr Jones said that had this ‘outlier’ result  not been given so much influence housing and business developments that have spent years in limbo waiting for the health of the reiver to recover could have progressed.

“Natural Resources Wales have demonstrated a level of professional ineptitude which in my view is beyond belief,” he said. “This points also to a significant failure on the part of the previous Welsh Government to challenge NRW when it was self-evident that they got it wrong.”

According to an information report submitted to Wrexham County Borough Council’s Planning Committee this week, in March 2025 NRW’s sampling picked up one huge spike that skewed its results and placed the River Dee into the ‘fail’ category.

They concluded it was likely due to a random snow event during a dry period, but continued to rate the river as failing.

Testing of the Environment Agency samples – of which there were more  – indicated this was a one-off however and the Dee is actually within acceptable levels.

“The consequences of the failure is significant,” said Cllr Jones. “We have delayed commercial and housing projects which have cost jobs, significantly delayed urgently needed housing and it’s also driven investors into Wrexham elsewhere.

“We now have a backlog of planning applications which will place a strain on our resources. This ineptitude of NRW should not go unchallenged, coming as it does on the back of the failure of NRW to properly assess the flooding risk and failure to activate flood defences that have been built at a huge cost resulting in people being flooded out of their homes.

“In my view the time has come for NRW to be broken up into a focused professional agency as it previously was and we need to ensure that they are held ultimately accountable for their failure on this.”

There are now hopes that planning applications put on hold by the phosphate issue – sometimes for years – may now finally come to fruition, although Wrexham Council’s Head of Planning Policy Chris Smith said there was much work to do before that became a reality.

But councillors remained furious with NRW.

Cllr David I Bithell pointed to the amount of sampling done by NRW.

“Between 2021-23, they only did 13 samples – over a three-year period,” he said.

“That’s virtually 4.3 samples per year, whereas in 2017-19 they did 60 samples at 20 per year. Are we challenging them on this sort of aspects of sampling?”

Cllr John McCusker said: “We’ve been hearing about this phosphorus for God knows how long now. Are we saying we’re going to re-look at applications that are currently in where phosphorus has been the issue?”

Cllr Rondo Roberts added: “I’m afraid this is another poor performance where they’re failing the people of Wrexham and Wales in general.”

Mr Smith and Wrexham’s Head of Service for Planning and Development Matthew Phillips said that a process to look at the planning backlog and prioritise applications where phosphorous was a reason for rejection or no decision being made would be taking place.