Nutrient Neutrality Update 08.06.2022

DFAL were in attendance at a meeting called by Norwich City Council and Broadland South Norfolk jointly to update the industry on Nutrient Neutrality (NN) in Norfolk. The Key takeaways from the meeting were:

• Agree to Local Authorities requested extension of time

• Be Patient

Ultimately there is still no solution to nutrient neutrality and therefore still no way to demonstrate compliance. 

What this means for you

If you have a Planning Approval in place, you remain unaffected.

If you have a live application lodged with the Planning Authority which forms overnight accommodation, it remains on hold and an extension of time for the application must be agreed or you will risk receiving a refusal.

For commercial applications that would draw customers from outside of the NN catchment areas, these applications are on hold and an extension of time for the application must be agreed or you will risk receiving a refusal.

If you will be shortly applying for a planning application which includes overnight accommodation or commercial operations that would draw customers from outside of the catchment area, the planning authority will immediately request an extension of time until at least November 2022.

The Councils anticipate time scales

Short Term (1-5 Weeks)

• Publication of detailed strategy and catchment maps

Medium Term (6-12 Weeks)

• Review and publication of new calculator

• Publication of short term interim mitigation strategy

Long Term (February 2023)

• Preparation and adoption of long term mitigation strategy

Potential anticipated mitigation methods

Short Term

• Installation of water efficiency measures in existing council housing stock

• Short term land changes

  • Cover crops

  • Sediment traps

  • Feild buffer stips

• Short term land change of use

  • Fallow

  • Cover Crops

• SUDs

  • Rainwater harvesting

  • Grey water harvesting

  • Soakways

• Review of expired permissions to establish ‘head room’

Long Term

• Permanent change of agricultural land to woodlands, wetlands, heathlands or grasslands.

• Formation of treatment wetlands

• Wastewater treatment plant upgrades.

Developer mitigation

No guidance was given on how developers might mitigate nutrient run off, but it was discussed that either a Levy would be imposed or an intermediary would make nutrient credits available for purchase (similar to carbon credits) to mitigate a developments run off.

DFAL commentary

What was clear to us at the meeting was that the mitigation is not for individual developers to undertake and as we suspected the key to dealing with this matter is the Statutory Authority Anglia Water (who were not present). Ultimately, foul water discharged to a public sewer ends up in their treatment plants before being discharged to the environment at large. Anglian Water has supposedly earmarked £800 Million for improvements to there infrastructure, however it was abundantly clear that this was significantly less than was required to bring their treatment system into a nutrient neutral state (despite AWA posted profit for 2021 being £94 million). On top of this Anglian Water has repeatedly discharged untreated sewage into the catchment areas during storm events, further polluting the river.

More information on AWA storm surge discharges can be found here: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e834e261b53740eba2fe6736e37bbc7b/page/Map/ 

The Local Councils are scrambling to create “head room” in the nutrient discharge, to allow the planning system to begin moving again for developments that can demonstrate mitigation. However it was suggested that this ‘head room’ would be assigned to developments in some way, but again, no clear guidance was provided on how this might be allocated or on what basis.

DFAL will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide further updates as we know more.