Cam Valley Forum committee member, Michael Goodhart was pleased to represent Cam Valley Forum in Parliament on 25 February 2026, supporting Pippa Heylings, the MP for South Cambs, as she presented her private members bill campaigning to protect our Chalk streams with UNESCO World Heritage Status
You can read the full text of her inspiring speech here and watch it on YouTube here Note the reference to Cam Valley Forum.
She started her speech by saying:
“I beg to move, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to take the necessary steps to nominate the UK’s chalk streams as a serial UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site.
My Bill concerns a rare natural resource of universal value. We in the UK are custodians of 85% of the world’s chalk streams, our equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef. They are timeless jewels of our natural heritage, yet we are allowing them to be drained dry and to have raw sewage dumped on them by water companies that put profit before people and the planet. My Bill would ensure that we finally give chalk streams the same reverence and protections that we give to our greatest cathedrals or monuments. Our streams and rivers are just as much a part of our national identity and international significance.….”
“…….In my constituency—here with us in the Gallery—there are the Cam Valley Forum, the Cam Catchment Partnership, the friends of the River Shep, the Granta and Fulbourn Fen, and the Cambridgeshire climate and nature forum.“
She finished by saying
“That is why I am joining many voices in calling for the listing of chalk streams, alongside ancient woodland, as irreplaceable habitat, which they certainly are, in the national planning policy framework, in line with the Government’s concession and promise during debate in this Chamber to
“make clear, unambiguously, our expectations for how plan makers and decision makers should treat chalk streams.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2025;
Vol. 775, c. 407.]
We should also be ringfencing substantial financing from the water restoration fund.
As a nation that prides itself on its love of nature and is preparing to celebrate the 100th birthday of nature’s greatest advocate, Sir David Attenborough, we have a responsibility to act. It is a global responsibility handed to us by the rocks beneath our feet. Let us embrace it and celebrate it. Let us be the global custodians of our very own equivalent of the Galapagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforest. This Bill would start the journey to secure UNESCO recognition for one of the rarest habitats on Earth. We hold 85% of the world’s chalk streams. With that privilege comes responsibility. Let us rise to it. I commend the Bill to the House.“
How to help the campaign to get Unesco recognition for chalk streams:
The consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework, is available here. Deadline 11:45pm 10 March 2026. Do respond to the consultation, calling for chalk streams, alongside ancient woodland, to be listed as irreplaceable habitat.
If you’d like to help in other ways do get in touch with us via info@camvalleyforum.uk