This is billed as a little clean up of the law, a simple clarification to make the system work that little bit better:

Proposals to decriminalise a series of environmental offences such as
fly-tipping, water pollution and unlicensed water abstraction will be
unveiled at a Government conference tomorrow.

Sounds good eh? Ah, but as always, the devil is in the details:

The agency would have total discretion as to the level of fine that was levied and the offender would not have to go to court.
Experts
say the right of appeal to a court would be needed under such a system,
but, controversially, ministers do not appear to be proposing one at
this stage.

The offender would not have to go to court. Ah, how nice of the little sweeties to let us off an appearance in person. Now, run this through in your mind again. A bureaucracy gets to set the level of punishment on its own. They are also the people who inflict the punishment. Not only do you not have to go to court to cough up the dough, you cannot go to court to cough up the dough, nor may you go to court to discuss whether you should cough up the dough.
A quite wonderful advance in freedom and human rights eh? Some zit brained civil servant can bankrupt you for an environmental offense (just as an example, someone fly tips a fridge on your land and you do not remove it) and you have no access to the court system whatsoever. Just pay whatever they demand.
Has anyone actually thought this thing through?