Governance
Regulatory Routes
Environmental responsibility in England is divided between several bodies. Reporting a concern to the wrong one usually means nothing happens at all.
Who does what
The responsible bodies
Environment Agency
- Responsible for
- Pollution of watercourses and groundwater, environmental permits, water quality incidents.
- How to contact
- Incident hotline 0800 80 70 60 (24 hours) for pollution in progress.
Report an active pollution incident immediately — colour, odour, dead fish, discharge. Time and location are essential.
Cornwall Council
- Responsible for
- Environmental health, private water supplies, contaminated land, statutory nuisance, ground stability on the public highway, planning enforcement.
- How to contact
- Through the council's report-it services.
Cornwall Council can arrange sampling of a private drinking water supply. This is the most direct route for a household worried about its water.
Health and Safety Executive
- Responsible for
- Explosives licensing and safety, storage and use of explosives, occupational and site safety.
- How to contact
- Via the HSE concerns reporting route.
The HSE holds licensing information about explosives sites and is the regulator for explosives safety.
Natural England
- Responsible for
- European protected species licensing, designated sites, protected species offences.
- How to contact
- Wildlife licensing and enquiries service.
Relevant where bats, dormice, otters or great crested newts may be affected by works.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust and ERCCIS
- Responsible for
- Biological records for Cornwall; the county's environmental records centre.
- How to contact
- Records enquiries and submission.
Not a regulator, but the holder of the species records that any ecological assessment must consult.
Coal Authority successor bodies and mine records
- Responsible for
- Cornwall is not a coal district, so mining records sit with the local authority, the BGS and private archives rather than a single national body.
- How to contact
- BGS GeoIndex and Cornwall Council records.
This fragmentation is a real obstacle: there is no single authority to ask for a definitive answer about historic Cornish workings.
Your elected representatives
- Responsible for
- Cornwall Councillors, the local MP, and parish councils can require answers from public bodies.
- How to contact
- Through their published constituency contact routes.
Effective where a regulator has been asked and has not responded.
Practical advice
Making a report that gets acted on
Regulators act on specifics. A report that says "the water looks wrong sometimes" is filed. A report that says "at 07:40 on 14 March the spring at [grid reference] ran orange for approximately two hours, photographs attached, wind from the south-west, heavy rain the previous night" is investigated.
Always ask for a reference number, keep a copy of what you sent, and record the date. If you receive no response within the body's published timescale, chase it in writing and copy in your councillor or MP. A documented non-response is itself evidence about how this area is being regulated.