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 date the planning application was first validated, this information had already been released to developers and would be made public so they could see where each site was in the queue;

·       In future it might be possible to have a policy which reflected priorities such as eco-friendly housing and affordable housing but this would require further development;

·       The income from the credits would cover the costs of maintaining the wetland sites for 80 years and there was no intention to make a profit, however the council was assuming the risk of purchasing the land and constructing the wetlands and this was reflected in the price of the credits;

·       Each housing development would have a bespoke calculation but the report set out estimates of the costs depending on the treatment of sewage from that development;

·       The next steps would be to start contacting developers about section 106 agreements and getting their planning applications up to date in terms of habitat risk assessments, ready for when the council could finally confirm it had achieved nutrient certainty.

A considerable amount of work had gone into the project and officers and partner agencies were thanked for their efforts. Particular thanks were offered to the landowner at Luston where the first integrated wetlands was constructed and it was hoped that other landowners would show the same public spirited approach.

Cabinet members welcomed the reports and noted that additional capacity had been brought into the planning team to get developments moving and the appropriate section 106 agreements drawn up and also into the ecology team to support the required habitat risk assessments.

Group leaders and representatives gave the views and queries of their groups. It was noted that:

·       This was ground-breaking work and an innovative solution which was widely welcomed;

·       Government funding had contributed to the development of the project, in recognition of the challenges Herefordshire faced;

·       It was hoped that there would be some public access to the wetlands sites, for example for educational visits, subject to appropriate safety controls;

·       A number of scenarios had been modelled to arrive at the estimated cost of credits and these had been rigorously tested to make sure the assumptions were robust;

·       A small number of developments may not be viable with the costs of these credits but at the moment this was the only solution available, it was hoped that this scheme might lead to private schemes coming forward to unlock more development;

·       The development sector would need support to restart development in the north of the county as applications had lapsed and supply chains fallen apart;

·       The mechanisms for testing viability of sites needed to be checked to make sure they were taking account of all the relevant factors;

·       There were some reservations that credit trading would make polluting practices acceptable and one of the major sources of river pollution in the area, the proliferation of intensive poultry units, would not be addressed by this approach;

·       This approach would apply at the moment only to that part of the Lugg SAC considered to be failing in the north of the county, while there were those who felt that the River Wye was also failing, or very close to it, the council was not required to mitigate this and needed to carefully consider where it committed funds.

The chairperson of the nutrient management board was invited to comment on the reports. She thanked all those involved in setting up the wetlands project. In response to her query it was confirmed that 20% of the phosphate removed would always be reserved for river betterment so if the wetland performed better than expected this would generate both additional betterment and also additional credits.

It was resolved:

a)             To note the progress being made to create Integrated Wetlands and to determine Nutrient Certainty; and

b)             To receive a further report as soon as is practicable and when all reasonable due diligence has been completed to consider whether Nutrient Certainty has actually been achieved.