Labour MP asks watchdog to stop Norfolk Broads 'cash for nature' housing plan
A Labour MP is asking the Office for Environmental Protection to block approval of a plan that would allow 15,780 new homes in the Norfolk Broads in return for payments into a nature fund.
Chris Hinchliff, the MP for North East Hertfordshire, wrote to Natalie Prosser, chief executive of the Office for Environmental Protection, urging it to intervene over the Norfolk Broads environmental delivery plan. The Guardian
The Norfolk plan is the first Environmental Delivery Plan under the Nature Restoration Fund. Such plans are designed to address the impacts of building on specific protected sites and species. Under Labour’s planning reforms, harm to protected habitats and species can be allowed if developers pay into a central fund used for conservation work at a later date. Critics have called the approach “cash to trash.”
Under the Norfolk proposal, drawn up by Natural England, developers would pay £2,675 per house, raising a total of £42m. The draft plan concerns the Broads Special Area of Conservation, a designation for sites of high conservation value, and was put out for public consultation on nutrient pollution. UK Government
The stakes are high because the Broads supports more than a quarter of Britain’s rarest plants and animals. Natural England has said the building would cause physical, chemical, hydrological and biological damage to habitats and rare species through extra nitrogen and phosphorus in the water. It has also said the Broads needs cuts of 91-97% in nutrient pollution to recover.
Hinchliff said the first plan would breach the government’s Planning and Infrastructure Act, was not based on the best available science and did not deal with pollution. He said that, on Natural England’s own figures, the funded measures would still leave about 83% of the additional nitrogen and up to 61% of the additional phosphorus entering the water each year permanently.
He also said the plan left out measures such as upgrading septic tanks, using small underground treatment plants for homes not on mains sewers, and planting buffer strips along rivers. Instead, he said, it relied on steps including cutting fen vegetation, deer control, work on catch dykes, removal of one weir and restoration of one kilometre of river.
Ministers say such plans are needed to unblock building towards a target of 1.5 million new homes by the end of this parliament. The proposal is also opposed by a campaign from the charity WildFish, supported by broadcaster Chris Packham.
