Supermarkets meet campaigners about River Wye

Protesters from Herefordshire and the Welsh Borders were outside Hay Castle ahead of the meeting

Tesco, Waitrose and Noble Foods have met with campaigners and environmentalists to discuss the ongoing deterioration of the River Wye.

Supermarket supply chains needed to bear responsibility for much of the pollution, The Wildlife Trusts, which chaired the Hay-on-Wye meeting, said.

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust member Richard Tyler, of Hereford, had called for Tesco to take action at its AGM.

The firm said it was committed to work to ensure the protection of the river.

Tesco is a customer of Avara Foods, which processes two million chickens each week at its factory in Hereford.

In May, Natural England downgraded the status of the Wye because of a decline in wildlife.

Craig Bennett, CEO of the Wildlife Trusts, said organisations needed to work together to meet international targets

Scientists and campaigners have said intensive farming, soil loss and sewage pollution had caused algal blooms, which cover the river bed in slime and limit the oxygen in the water.

Twenty-four million chickens are being farmed in the river's catchment at any one time, according to data from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

'Big way'

The Environment Agency, Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Herefordshire Council, Powys County Council, the NFU, the Soil Association, Afonydd Cymru and The Wye & Usk Foundation were among those at the meeting at Hay Castle.

The Wildlife Trusts CEO Craig Bennett said: "The UK government has signed up to the very clear international targets to cut nutrient pollution in half in the next six-and-a-half years and we all need to work together to achieve that."

Nick Day, from campaign group Friends of the Lower Wye, stated: "Business as usual isn't working, so we need something to change in a big way."

James Wallace, of the River Action campaign group, said he would like everybody to work together "so we can come up with a plan that cleans up the Wye before it's ecologically dead".

Avara Foods said through the delivery of its roadmap, it was "committed to doing our part"

Tesco said it was committed to playing its part in ensuring the protection of the river.

A spokesperson said it had encouraged all of its suppliers "to sign up to the Water Roadmap" as part of The Courtauld Commitment 2030, "which looks to reduce water pollution in key sourcing regions".

In partnership with WWF, it had funded some of the work of The Wye & Usk Foundation to tackle water pollution in the area, Tesco stated.

Avara has set out plans to reduce the impact that suppliers are having on the river by 2025 and said it had reduced the amount of manure produced by suppliers' farms by 30% since the start of the year.

The company said if the condition of the Wye "is to be substantially improved", all contributors - including water companies and other agricultural producers - "need to work together to understand their impact, then create and deliver detailed plans".