Green groups press Sunak to speed up nutrient neutrality

Environmental champions have urged prime minister, Rishi Sunak, not to revoke nutrient neutrality restrictions on new developments, arguing this would “leave the water environment in a worse – rather than a better – state for the next generation”

In a letter, the group pointed out: “The public is also increasingly aware that nutrient pollution is the sewage scandal in slow motion and poses the biggest single threat to achieving healthy waterways across the country.”

The letter – signed by the leaders of 22-organisations including Wildlife and Countryside Link, The Rivers Trust, WWT, Wild Justice, WildFish and Greenpeace – cited media reports that the rules requiring nutrient mitigation for new developments impacting nutrient-heavy protected areas might be lifted. They said this would break green Brexit promises and undermine the nascent ecosystem services and green finance markets that also underpin the delivery of much of the Environment Act, Environmental Improvement Plan and Plan for Water.

The campaigners accepted the need for new homes but urged nutrient mitigation could be speeded up by allowing “catchment nutrient balancing, bringing all parties responsible for nutrient pollution into building solutions together, rather than treating them all separately”.

The letter noted that current measures, particularly the provisions of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, have “perverse outcomes” including driving water companies to concentrate efforts on the largest nutrient inputs from sewers, which tend to be near the river mouth and therefore only of benefit to a short stretch of river. “If companies could spend their investment on nature-based solutions (like treatment wetlands) in the upper end of catchments, often in partnership with farmers, there would be potential for an improved outcome for the environment at far lower cost and in a shorter time frame. There would also be many other co-benefits to this type of intervention for wildlife, flood prevention, management of water resources, net zero, and access to nature.”

• A new report from Wild Justice on the state of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) has argued the condition of two-thirds of SSSIs by area have not been assessed in the past decade and yet the out-of-date information is used as part of official Defra reports. A Sight for Sore SSSIs found scrutiny of the most recent assessments revealed SSSIs are in a worse state that the Defra data suggests and that things are getting worse rather than better. Wild Justice called for a “rapid catch up” It said Natural England should carry out a review of the resources needed to ensure that 95% of English SSSIs are in Favourable condition or Unfavourable Recovering condition by 2030, based on 80% of assessments being carried out in the period 2025-2029.