Environment Agency has nearly halved water-use inspections in last five years

Exclusive: Drop in compliance visits in England described as ‘incredibly detrimental to water resources’

The Environment Agency has slashed its water-use inspections by almost a half over the past five years, it can be revealed.

Environment Agency (EA) officers visited people and businesses with licences to abstract, or take, water from rivers and aquifers 4,539 times in 2018-19, but this dropped to 2,303 inspections in 2022-23, according to data obtained by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations.