Ashford Leader Visits No10 Downing Street To Discuss Nutrient Solution

19th July 2023
Economic Development

Ashford Borough Council Leader, Cllr Noel Ovenden, visited No10 Downing Street this week (Monday 17 July) to meet with the Prime Minister’s special advisors to discuss Government support in finding a national solution to nutrient neutrality.

The Leader specifically raised the need to unblock the delivery of affordable homes in Ashford, that not building new homes does very little to slow the increase in water pollution and that Government organisations need to own this national problem.

Cllr Noel Ovenden, Leader of Ashford Borough Council, said: “With hundreds of desperately needed affordable, shared ownership and social homes held up by the moratorium on building in the Stour Valley due to the ongoing pollution of the Stodmarsh nature reserve, we need Government intervention now, and I made this very clear.

“What we’re facing is a lack of ownership of the problem. Somebody in Government needs to take possession of the issue. The Prime Minister needs to act quickly to help us get our Local Plan back on track to deliver much needed homes in the right places and put a stop to the speculative applications we are seeing across the borough.”

Last week Cllr Ovenden joined a number of local authority leaders across the country in signing a letter asking Prime Minister, Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, to act now on nutrient neutrality.

Without it, they say, it will continue to stifle housing development and local economies. The letter from the District Councils’ Network, outlined the concerns from local government leaders, and demanded Government intervention. A roundtable discussion on the issue took place at the Local Government Association Conference in Bournemouth earlier this month.

In Ashford (Kent) the delivery of 10,000 much needed homes has been halted. In addition to stopping building this has a particular impact on affordable housing as the council has been forced to agree two-thirds fewer affordable houses due to viability being undermined by additional costs to developers.

Possible strategic solutions, such as wetlands, have also stalled, despite the council being willing to invest considerable forward funding, because key Government organisations are not working constructively with the local authority and constantly change their advice or stance on the matter.

Background
Ashford Borough Council continues to respond to the various issues that have arisen from the need for new housing and other developments to achieve ‘nutrient neutrality’, due to the deterioration of Stodmarsh Lakes.

Since Natural England issued their advice in July 2020, planning applications for thousands of new homes located within the Stour Catchment and/or which discharge foul water into the catchment have not been able to progress, unless they can achieve nutrient neutrality.

In response to this issue, the council has been working on a way to deliver long term nutrient mitigation, by identifying suitable land in the borough for strategic wetlands, which can generate off-site nutrient mitigation that can then be secured by developments, allowing them to be granted planning permission.

In March this year members agreed to support the continuation of this work on acquisition of potential sites for this purpose. They also agreed the proposed contents and broad scope of a future Nutrient Neutrality Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), and for this to be subject to public consultation in due course.

The numbers
Many housing applications in the Stour catchment have been unable to be determined. This ‘hold’ on granting permissions on affected sites will continue until a solution is found. Around 90% of the planned housing development set out in the recently adopted Local Plan (2019) is ‘caught’ and in this context cannot come forward now, until nutrient neutrality is achieved.

The total planned growth caught equates to around 10,000 homes up to 2030, with 6,000 of these homes subject to active planning applications – i.e. in the planning system being promoted by a developer awaiting planning approval but that currently a decision cannot be made.

Strategic wetland
A core component of the council’s strategy is the creation of strategic wetlands within the borough as a means of providing off-site nutrient mitigation. Discussions are ongoing, yet both parties have agreed an approach and in principle, the financial sum that would be involved in acquiring the wetland. It is also agreed that the wetland can only be considered acceptable, in principle, if it formally forms part of the overall mitigation strategy, and this will be reflected in the application prior to its determination.

Significant nutrient mitigation
Whilst details of both projects are commercially sensitive (and subject to commercial agreements and gaining the relevant permissions and permits), it should be noted that they would yield significant levels of nutrient mitigation. A precise figure cannot be given at present, but these solutions will mean that the nutrient neutrality impediment has the ability to be removed for all those housing sites allocated in the Local Plan 2030.

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