Agenda item

Reason for the Recommendations:

To provide a means of mitigation to get the housing market moving and sell credits to developers to enable them to demonstrate housing schemes are nutrient neutral.

Contact Officer: Phillip Rowson, Phillip.rowson@north-norfolk.gov.uk

Decision

RESOLVED

1.            To enter a Joint Venture (a company limited by guarantee) with Anglian Water and one or more local authorities in Norfolk for the provision of environmental credits (initially focussing on addressing nutrient neutrality) as per the attached Heads of Terms.

2.            To commit £30,000 revenue (Planning Reserve) in 2023/24 as part of establishing the Joint Venture. The purpose of the funding being to establish the operating model in year one, after which there will be full recovery of the operating costs as part of the credit income.

3.            To delegate to the Director of Place and Climate Change in consultation with the Leader of the Council to finalise the details of the joint venture agreement and operating arrangements and enter the Joint Venture

The Portfolio Holder for Planning & Enforcement, Cllr A Brown, introduced this item. He explained that the report contained details of how the constraints imposed by nutrient neutrality would be overcome through the establishment of a Joint Venture (JV). The Joint Venture would source the mitigation that is required to get the housing market moving and sell credits to developers to enable them to demonstrate housing schemes were nutrient neutral. Cllr Brown said that this was the preferred format for addressing the issue. The alternative option of developer-led schemes did not sit comfortably with the ethos of the District and could lead to small and medium sized enterprises struggling to meet the associated costs. The other option of using a solution led by Natural England, could cause some challenges as their methods for their calculator did not align with the Council’s. A Joint Venture company was the best solution and the seed funding of £30k for local authorities joining the scheme seemed very reasonable.

Cllr Brown said that there were still some issues that needed to be firmed up. It was not clear what would happen in the case of a split vote and there was likely to be some contention as to how schemes were allocated. As it currently stood, the greatest need was in North Norfolk, in terms of numbers of affected sites.

He concluded by saying that he would like to see Government involvement in the control of the market in acquiring land and it would be interesting to see how the availability of sites would be affected and if there would be a mechanism put in place for the call of sites.

The Chairman added that Natural England had identified a site in North Norfolk where mitigation could take place but no further detail had been provided. He invited the Assistant Director for Planning to speak.

He began by saying that this was an extremely complicated area of planning policy. In terms of the numbers of applications currently delayed by nutrient neutrality, North Norfolk had 99 applications and rising. He said that the JV solution was the best option for delivery of small and medium sized enterprises and the Council would focus on the delivery of these. In terms of the three strands of environmental credits, the first was that of the developer purchasing land and developing their own form of mitigation and this was likely to happen on the larger sites. Natural England are led in terms of nature-based solutions and this was taking longer to develop and come forward. This meant that the third option of the JV was preferable and good value for money.

Cllr W Fredericks referred to section 1.6 of the report which highlighted the necessary improvement of wastewater treatment. She referred to the loss of two blue flags in North Norfolk recently due to water contamination and said that she would like Anglian Water to demonstrate that this work was underway and their ongoing commitment to improvement and to outline their role in the Joint Venture company. The Assistant Director for Planning replied that it was a formal legal requirement of the Levelling Up Bill and all water companies would be bound by these improvements. He said that he would be speaking to Anglian Water at the next meeting of the Board and was happy to raise that point but added that it was a national issue.

Cllr V Gay said that clean water was once considered to be a considerable accomplishment of the UK and it was a shame to see standards slipping so much. She said that if Cllr Fredericks was proposing that Anglian Water spoke to members about the issue of waste water treatment in North Norfolk, then she would be happy to support that.

Cllr A Brown pointed out that in section 6 paragraph c, this was highlighted as a risk of the JV proposal. He added that the Council needed to progress as soon as possible.

Cllr R Kershaw said that he was supportive of the recommendations set out in the report but the attitude of Anglian Water so far regarding water pollution and the blue flags made them an uncomfortable bedfellow. He added that there was no mention of agriculture at all in the report, and it remained one of the biggest polluters. There was not enough water available to support the farming industry, yet alone the additional number of homes that needed to be built. He said that he supported the proposals for North Norfolk in terms of planning, there were far bigger issues ahead and he had concerns about how these would be addressed.

Cllr N Dixon said that he was supportive of the proposals in principle but saw it as a skeleton to which more ‘flesh’ needed to be added. He said that paucity of detail was the greatest challenge, referring to section 3.5 which stated that it was not anticipated that the JV would be a direct provider of mitigation solutions itself, yet the vision of mitigation solutions was at the heart of this but it was not known who was going to undertake it. He went onto say that it was heading in the right direction but he was not clear on how it was going to work. He gave the example of the proposed credit allocation policy, which suggested dealing with them on an ‘oldest to newest’ basis. This was fine but it was not clear how this would be allocated across the local authorities involved in the JV scheme. It was this kind of issue that was causing him some concern. The test would be in how these general principles were applied and whether they worked. Cllr Dixon went onto say that there was a thread of optimism regarding the timescales. He said he thought it would be difficult to hold to these timescales. Costs were also an issue. It wasn’t clear how firm the costings were and whether more funding would be needed in the future. He concluded by saying that he was not highlighting these matters in a critical way but just to state that there was still much more to be done in order to deliver what was needed in the timescales specified. He said that he felt an additional risk should be added to the list of mitigation progressing in some local authority areas but not others and the release of planning applications not being spread evenly across the affected areas.

Cllr N Lloyd echoed Cllr Dixon’s comments. He said that he was concerned that if developers contributed sums of money to offset the nutrient neutrality issue, how would that affect the viability of affordable housing delivery. Commenting on agricultural impact, he said that every day phosphate and nitrates were leaching into waterways and this was a matter that would have to be addressed at some point.

He said that there was no other option right now but he asked that when it was reviewed in a year’s time, would it come back to the Council so that progressed could be assessed.

The Assistant Director for Planning said that the request was for seed funding to set up a private, arms length company. He confirmed that he was happy to report back to Cabinet regularly on progress. He added that it would be a company in its own right that would be independent.

Cllr L Shires referred to page 119 and the ‘need to identify a portfolio of short-term mitigation to enable planning applications to be considered and determined and new hones delivered’. She asked how long that this would take and whether it would be done independently as Districts. She said that short term mitigation did not feel like a long-term solution.

The Assistant Director for Planning replied that the group of short term mitigation measures had been set out and included purchasing an agreement with landowners to plant a cover crop to address run-off issues. This could mean a change in farming methods that could be in place for a number of years until the natural reed-beds were established or until investment in waste water treatment plants came to fruition.

Cllr Shires asked what if the long-term solutions were not fully developed by the end of the anticipated 2 year period, which was considered to be short term. The Assistant Director for Planning replied that various provisions were being looked into to ensure that they would be working by then, including agreements with Anglian Water to ensure that waste water treatment schemes were coming online and agreements with landowners regarding nature based solutions. He added that the position of Natural England, who had oversight of these matters, was that they would only release sites for development once they were assured that permanent mitigation was in place.

The Chief Executive reminded members that it was almost a year since the issue of nutrient neutrality had taken hold. A partnership solution was offered to try and address the issue. It was very much a stopgap and a practical response and a work in progress. He said that the issues that had been raised needed to be seen in the of the context of the wider relationship that the Council had with Anglian Water as the Planning authority, around their investment programme and their relationship with Ofwat around their improved capital programme. He said that in terms of accommodating future growth, and water scarcity and the quality of water discharge and the aspiration to achieve a better balance in terms of nature based solutions, it appeared that there needed to be a strategic conversation with Anglian Water moving forward if all these issues were to be addressed in a reasonable timeframe. These issues could not be considered in isolation. He concluded by commending the hard work of officers in bringing forward a practical solution. It was not the finished article and the concerns raised around equity across the local authorities were addressed.

Cllr J Rest asked why Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council were not taking part in the Joint Venture company. The Assistant Director for Planning replied that the issue of nutrient neutrality was restricted to the River Wensum and the Broads and there was no real impact on those two authorities.

Cllr J Toye commented that the Council was establishing a separate company that would be costing the Council money and he would like to ensure that ongoing costs were monitored.

Cllr N Dixon said that one of the main challenges would be managing expectations. The Council needed to be careful that it was explained that this was an approach towards a solution and that the final solutions were still some way off. He urged caution in how the JV was presented.

Cllr H Blathwayt said that it was not a level playing field. Suffolk Coastal, for example, had escaped being caught up in the nutrient neutrality issue despite feeding into the catchment area for the Waveney River and the Broads.

The Chairman acknowledged that there were shortcomings and challenges but it was a good starting point. He thanked officers for their hard work.

It was proposed by Cllr T Adams, seconded by Cllr A Brown and

RESOLVED

1.              To enter a Joint Venture (a company limited by guarantee) with Anglian Water and one or more local authorities in Norfolk for the provision of environmental credits (initially focussing on addressing nutrient neutrality) as per the attached Heads of Terms.

2.              To commit £30,000 revenue (Planning Reserve) in 2023/24 as part of establishing the Joint Venture. The purpose of the funding being to establish the operating model in year one, after which there will be full recovery of the operating costs as part of the credit income.

3.              To delegate to the Director of Place and Climate Change in consultation with the Leader of the Council to finalise the details of the joint venture agreement and operating arrangements and enter the Joint Venture