A Wiltshire councillor who spent ten years in a druid grove has successfully gained support for a motion that calls for the protection of the county’s rivers.

The motion’s key request is for the council to instruct water companies operating in Wiltshire to make the “required investment” to protect the rivers as a priority.

It was approved at the full council meeting on Tuesday, October 15, and Liberal Democrat Cllr Robert MacNaughton told those in attendance that he believes rivers are “living beings” with “sentience”.

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Cllr Robert MacNaughton at the full council meeting.Cllr Robert MacNaughton at the full council meeting. (Image: Wiltshire Council) Cllr MacNaughton submitted the motion with Conservative Cllr Ashley O’Neill, and it proposes a meeting with executives of Wessex Water, Thames Water and Southern Water to receive “greater clarity on future investment in the overdue upgrades to our sewage systems in Wiltshire”.

It also calls upon these companies to engage with the government and Ofwat to discuss “how the burden of the necessary investment in Wiltshire is addressed”.

Speaking on rivers at the full council meeting, Cllr MacNaughton claimed: “They have sentience in the same way your plants at home have sentience, when you water them and talk to them, they do respond to your presence, your cats as well, your dogs as well.”

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He described his prior experiences blessing the River Marden with the Bishop of Ramsbury and shamanic practitioners.

Cllr MacNaughton said: “We as a council need to work with Wessex Water, Southern Water and Thames Water, we need to work with their management, to determine or to understand more what they are going to do to reduce the poo in our rivers.”

Wiltshire Council’s leader Richard Clewer and the leader of Wiltshire’s Liberal Democrats Ian Thorn both supported the motion.

Liberal Democrat Cllr David Vigar said: “I think we need to get a proper understanding of what is the fair and right level for the billpayers to pay and how we can actually get the investment together.

“And if Wiltshire can be the place where we have that dialogue and we can actually set an example to the rest of the nation, then that’s a great thing to do and I support the motion fully.”

The cabinet member for public health Cllr Ian Blair-Pilling added that sewage issues affect communities through flooding as well as within the rivers, whilst Liberal Democrat Cllr Richard Budden suggested the county needed an overarching strategy for water in the county.

The motion was unanimously approved.