AN MP is backing a Parliamentary Bill to nominate Britain’s chalk streams as a serial UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site — giving them the stronger protections they urgently need.
World Heritage Site designation would give chalk streams international recognition and long-term safeguards, helping to unlock funding, research and public engagement to restore them.
Only around 200 chalk streams are known to exist in the world — and 85 per cent of them are here in England. In North West Hampshire, residents are fortunate to live alongside the most famous of them all, the River Test.
Speaking after the Ten Minute Rule Bill introduced the proposals in the Commons, Kit Malthouse, MP for North West Hampshire, said: “This legislation is urgently needed. Chalk streams are a rare and precious ecosystem found almost nowhere else on Earth, yet instead of being protected, they are being polluted, over-abstracted and neglected.
"We all want to see clear water teeming with wildlife in rivers like the Test.
“The previous Conservative government had begun vital recovery work, which has sadly now been abandoned by Ministers. I’ve repeatedly raised the issue in Parliament but it has fallen on deaf ears.
"I urge the government to begin the formal process of nominating our chalk streams as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and to revive the restoration plan that was underway before the election.”
Share