Dear Constituent,
Thank you for your email about sewage discharges and nature.
The Government has taken action to unlock over 100,000 homes held up due to legacy EU laws on nutrient neutrality across 62 local authorities, while protecting the environment, 100,000 more homes to be built via reform of defective EU laws - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). These rules have had a significant impact on families and communities, stalling developments such as high street regeneration schemes and forcing some smaller local builders out of business. The package announced on 29 August will deliver an estimated £18 billion boost to the economy and help deliver the commitment to build more homes where communities want them.
I am aware that increased levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus entering our waterways is a problem. However, the contribution from new homes is very small and ministers have taken steps to tackle nutrients at the source. The Government has introduced legislation to require water companies in impacted areas to upgrade their wastewater treatment works to the maximum technical level by 2030, stripping out significant levels of nutrients. These upgrades will benefit existing homes, not just new homes, and will provide an effective approach to reducing wastewater nutrient pollution.
Between now and 2030, when the upgrades will take place, £280 million has been made available to invest in nature-based and broader solutions to ensure the very small amount of nutrients attributable to these homes is more than offset. This doubles the funding available for mitigation schemes and will be delivered by evolving the Nutrient Mitigation Scheme which is already up and running in the Tees. Ministers will work with the house building industry to ensure that larger developers make an appropriate and fair contribution to this scheme over the coming years and is discussing the right structure and approach with the Home Builders Federation.
More broadly, you can read my position on sewage discharge on my website here: Water quality and sewage discharges: August 2023 | Richard Fuller
As you will see from the link, back in 2021 I took the view that the Government needed to go further in its action to address water quality than it was taking at the time. It was this combined effort with other MPs who took this similar view which ensured that the Government moved forward to implement tougher measures to address water quality.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely,
