This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Water Restoration Fund has opened for applications and will offer grants to local groups and charities, farmers and landowners to improve rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and access to nature in England in areas where illegal pollution has occurred.

Initiatives that could gain grants – which will be handed out under a competitive process – could include creating wetlands, boosting wildlife and river habitat, and improving public access to blue and green spaces.

Environment secretary Steve Barclay said: “I know how important our precious waterways are to local communities and to nature, which is why we’re taking tough action to ensure our regulators are well-equipped to hold those who pollute them to account.

Other measures the government has taken include plans to ban bonuses for water company executives where firms have committed serious criminal breaches, and boosting the Environment Agency’s capacity to carry out more inspections.

Cat Hobbs, the director of We Own It, said; “It’s a crazy way to run a water system – letting shareholders from around the world make money by failing to invest and then punishing them with fines so meagre they are simply seen as the cost of doing business.

“Only a steady return of water companies to public hands, with local communities represented on boards, will give English people the powers we need to protect our rivers and seas.”

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