Volunteers can’t save our rivers from this tide of filth

‘The River Wye inspired poets and artists…’ Photograph: Simon Whaley Landscapes/Alamy

First it was the food banks that stepped in to fill a gap left by the retreating state, as successive Tory governments denied responsibility for the increase in their use.

Now it seems pollution monitoring of English rivers is also to be taken over by volunteers, because after years of severe cuts in the funding and staffing of the Environment Agency, it is no longer able to fulfil its statutory obligations by regularly monitoring all our rivers (Citizen scientists to monitor English rivers in £7m scheme, 14 September).