§ Mr. WigginTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reason Herefordshire is dealt with by the Welsh Environment Agency. [65169]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Environment Agency is a corporate body covering England and Wales. DEFRA sponsors all of the Environment Agency's work in England and the National Assembly for Wales sponsors the Environment Agency's work in Wales.
The agency has eight regions, seven in England and one in Wales. The operational boundaries of regions are defined by the confines of river catchments. A catchment is an area of land from which the water drains into a particular river. This continues a long-standing policy that originated with the water authorities and was subsequently adopted by one of the agency's predecessor bodies, the National Rivers Authority.
Herefordshire is located in the Wye River catchment. The River Wye crosses the boundary between England and Wales, but application of the catchment principle requires that the whole river is managed by a single agency operational unit, in this case Environment Agency Wales.
This means that the whole of the Wye catchment, including a large part of Herefordshire, is managed on a day-to-day operational basis by staff working for Environment Agency Wales. However, the first and main point of contact with the agency for those living anywhere in Herefordshire is the Upper Severn Area of the agency's midlands region.