When I said before that the quality of reporting around this was poor, this is the kind of thing I meant.
While Britain was in the EU, a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law.
From 2016, the government decided to test water quality under WFD every three years rather than annually.
A single sentence separating two contradictory statements, each presented as fact. Can the Guardian really not be aware of when Brexit occurred? This is typical of the paper, which is happy to report on the water environment provided it can be used as an argument for nationalising the water industry/being in the EU (I mean, I absolutely hate Brexit, but the reduction in sampling frequency has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with budget cuts).
Ideologically, I'm in favour of nationalised water. That doesn't necessarily mean I think it would be a pragmatic thing to do now. Do I think that nationalisation is a solution to the "problem" (what is that exactly? Reduction of storm overflows? Elimination of storm overflows? Reduction of pollution incidents? Improvement of bathing water quality? Improvement of water ecology? All different things with different solutions)? Not really. Dwr Cymru have all these challenges; they have no shareholders. The same goes for plenty of other water and sanitation providers around the developed world.