The Environment Agency has been ordered to go back to the drawing board for a second time over how it will address pollution on a once famed trout stream in North Yorkshire.

For decades, the spring-fed Costa Beck, which rises at Keld Head, a mile west of Pickering, has offered little to anglers, having been devastated by sewage pollution, commercial effluent and agricultural run-off.

The smothering effect of silt washing into the stream means any eggs spawned by fish won’t develop because they’ll be starved of oxygen. In places, Pickering Fishery Association (PFA), says, the silt is 1m deep.

Environmental lawyers Fish Legal took up the cudgels on behalf of the fishing club and last year looked to have scored a significant court victory.

Costa Beck a once thriving trout and grayling stream has been devastated by pollution over the years. Pictured Martin Smith, honorary secretary of Pickering Fishing Association casting a fly 23rd September 2025. Picture Jonathan Gawthorpe

placeholder image — Costa Beck a once thriving trout and grayling stream has been devastated by pollution over the years. Pictured Martin Smith, honorary secretary of Pickering Fishing Association casting a fly 23rd September 2025. Picture Jonathan Gawthorpe

The Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed the Secretary of State and Environment Agency (EA)’s appeal against a High Court judgment upholding the club’s complaint of longstanding breaches of legal duties to tackle pollution.

The courts ruled that river protection plans must include specific, practical actions for individual rivers, not vague or generic measures.

However new plans produced by the EA again failed to identify concrete steps to restore the beck. Fish Legal has now secured a new High Court order quashing the plans. The move was uncontested by Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds and the EA and the EA has to produce a new plan by June.

Zoe Wedderburn-Day, Head of Policy and Strategy at Fish Legal, said: "People know about sewage in rivers and they know agricultural pollution is a problem.

“What they may not see is how often real action is delayed, even after courts have stepped in. This case asks a simple question: do environmental laws mean anything if regulators ignore court rulings?”

The ruling comes days after the Office for Environmental Protection warned of possible failures by government to comply with the law. The OEP referenced the Costa Beck case.

PFA secretary Martin Smith said the ongoing saga “could be a script for a future (TV sitcom) Yes Minister”. The EA's plan had been “half-hearted”, and despite all the legal action it had done nothing to identify the source of the silt and “therefore can’t take enforcement action”.

Where it is coming from is a matter of dispute. Yorkshire Water has a combined sewage discharge further downstream, there are also two trout farms – one owned by the EA – which discharge into the beck, as well as a land drain carrying agricultural run-off.

Mr Smith said: “The EA lost a judicial review, then an appeal, then they decided not to contest a second judicial review. They look so bad I fear they will now try to change the law to avoid looking bad..”

Nature Minister Mary Creagh said: “We are taking urgent action to restore our natural environment and have set out a clear path to achieving the country’s legally binding environmental targets in our new Environmental Improvement Plan. We will carefully consider the OEP’s assessment and respond in due course.”