Brussels, 13/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday the European Commission decided to send a final written warning to the United Kingdom for having persistently failed to implement the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. It had addressed a reasoned option to the country (second stage of the procedure as laid out in Article 226 of the Treaty before beginning European Court proceedings). Under this 1991 Directive member states are required to ensure that sewage and other wastewater from all agglomerations with populations of over 15,000 is required to undergo secondary-level (ie biological) treatment before being discharged into rivers and other water bodies. The necessary treatment plants to achieve this should have been operational by 31 December 2000, but in the UK this has not yet been done for 14 agglomerations. Nine of the agglomerations are in Northern Ireland: Bangor, Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Londonderry, Larne, Newtownabbey, Omagh, Portrush and Donaghdee. Four agglomerations are in England, at Broadstairs and Margate in Kent, Brighton on the south coast and Bideford/Northam in Devon, and Lerwick is in Scotland. Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: “By not fully complying with this EU law, the UK is not delivering the level of protection against pollution from waste water that it signed up to and that British citizens deserve. I intend to give priority to ensuring that Member States live up to their commitments.”