As the competent body under the Habitat and Species Regulations (2017) Cabinet is asked to note the progress being made towards creating Integrated Wetlands phosphate reduction and steps being taken to ensure Nutrient Certainty to the required standard of beyond reasonable scientific doubt.

As the two items are closely linked, the reports on Nutrient Certainty and Phosphate Credit Pricing and Allocation Policy were debated together. The recommendations were voted on separately.

The cabinet member infrastructure and transport introduced the reports. He thanked officers for their work on the project, which had taken a significant length of time to bring forward and acknowledged the role of the chairperson of the nutrient management board as a supportive and interested advisor on the project.

Cabinet members heard that:

·       The nutrient certainty report set out the progress made to date but did not represent a final position;

·       The integrated wetlands were a mechanism which allowed the council to strip phosphates out of sewage discharge before it entered the river, enabling some housing development to proceed;

·       The current moratorium on housebuilding in the north of the county had had a significant impact on income to the county and on builders and developers operating in Herefordshire;

·       The council was not responsible for the health of the rivers in the county, as this role sat with national agencies, but in order to support the building industry the council had chosen to commit resources to this innovative mitigation solution;

·       The wetlands would provide a degree of betterment to the river system, which was welcomed, but the primary objective was to provide mitigation for development and the council would continue to press the government to provide funds to national agencies to address the underlying issue of pollution in the river systems.

The interim delivery director for waste transformation and wetland project explained the technical detail of the reports. She reminded cabinet members of the background to the moratorium on house building and explained that it had taken a long time to pull the project together because this was the first time anybody had been able to measure how much phosphate leaves a sewage treatment plant and how much reed beds take up to a level of scientific certainty that they could put a trading system onto that. In addition to the impact of river pollution on wildlife and biodiversity, the inability to approve housing development in the north of the county had a huge impact in constraining the supply of homes, including affordable homes, and on the council’s income in terms of its council tax base and new homes bonus from the government. Cabinet members also noted that:

·       The modelling undertaken was robust and allowed for factors such as climate change over the next 70 years and differences in rainfall across the year;

·       The modelling work was expected to be completed within the next few weeks and would be brought in a future report for final sign off;

·       It was important that those responsible for the pollution of the rivers should address the underlying causes of high levels of phosphates but the wetland scheme would allow for some river betterment in addition to releasing development;

·       The phosphate credit system proposed would operate on a first come first served policy based on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 118