Rivers in trust: stakeholders and delivery of the EU water framework directive

This paper describes the potential role of third-sector rivers trusts charities in co-delivery of the EU water framework directive. It uses as a case study the Tyne Rivers Trust in northeast England. The aim of the paper is to critically evaluate the capacity of the third sector to help deliver the vital public engagement, evidence-based strategies and practical measures required by the directive within a ‘big society' political context. The trust has several avenues of work, which heavily depend on stakeholder participation, from education, through debates on problem issues concerning the river to active voluntary work on measures to relieve ‘pressures' identified for local waterbodies under the directive. The trust also undertakes, in partnership with the Environment Agency, riparian works on aggravated sources of siltation – an identified threat to the biodiversity of the River Tyne. The paper ends with an assessment of the successes and failures of the organisation in its stakeholder relationships: ‘engagement' is identified as a vital element of the niche occupied by rivers trusts. It is seen as vital for the trust to maintain and adapt its successful ‘localism' model during a period of rapidly growing influence on river management issues.