‘You need persistence’: the Norfolk couple who took on environmental regulators three times – and won

A Norfolk couple's decade-long fight to protect a rare wetland has resulted in a landmark legal victory, with a high court judge ruling that environmental regulators failed in their duty to prevent pollution.

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Tim and Geli Harris, a Norfolk couple, have spent over a decade fighting to protect Catfield Fen, a rare wetland in the Norfolk Broads, from pollution. According to The Guardian — Environment, they have now scored a hat-trick of landmark legal victories to save the internationally important wetland after winning again in the high court this month. Lady Justice Lieven found that Natural England failed in its statutory duty to protect Catfield Fen from pollution after nitrates and phosphates washed from arable fields into the fen, home to 2,500 species including rarities such as the fen orchid, crested buckler fern, breeding bittern and swallowtail butterflies.

The Harrises have spent 15 years and £1.5m of their own money taking action to hold to account government agencies for failing to protect the fen, which is part of a special area of conservation (SAC), an internationally important wetland protected by law. The marshes lie within the Broads national park. Tim Harris fears that “regulatory inertia” is preventing pollution from being halted on waterways across the country.

The couple are big fans of Dirty Business, the recent Channel 4 dramatisation of a maths professor and a retired detective’s battle against sewage pollution, the water companies and the Environment Agency. Tim Harris says: “It’s just like that film when you go to a meeting. The language is from [George Orwell’s] 1984. What we call the light side doesn’t have the money. The dark side does. That’s where the money is.”

Natural England said it accepted the court’s verdict that it had not done enough to protect Catfield Fen but it would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.