WHEN the Environment Agency was born on April Fool's Day, 1996, it pledged to get tough with those polluting the region.

And while it has won praise for its role as the environmental watchdog, some fear it is sometimes forced to use restraint when confronted by big industry.

Dr Mike Jeffries, lecturer in ecology at Northumbria University, said that in some instances the Government had become "politically nervous" when the agency is forced to take on powerful industrial bodies.

He said: "An argument often used by industry is the costs of clean-up and the impact on jobs.

"Some industry may say that they cannot install expensive technology to make the environment cleaner.

"It is then very easy for them to say, 'If we're forced to do this, we'll have to close a factory', and so on.

"In many cases, there is a balance to be struck which can often water down the benefit for the environment."

Often, polluters agree to a "consent system", where the expectation is that discharges will be progressively improved over a period of time, rather than halted outright, said Dr Jeffries.

The Environment Agency's wide-ranging responsibilities across England and Wales include regulating more than 2,000 industrial processes, the disposal of radioactive waste, improving water quality, wildlife habitats and maintaining flood defences.

It is also forced to rely on a wide range of funding streams, which can become stretched.

The agency was created after the Government merged Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution and the National Rivers Authority into one single body, in the wake of the privatisation of the water companies.

But enforcement powers have barely changed and are still based around a number of key legislative acts, such as the Environmental Protection Act 1990.