My Lords, I have houses for rental on my farm in Norfolk and in London. Sadly, I have been caught up in the restrictions. In March 2022, I proposed to convert two redundant barns into houses, but my council wrote to me to say that Natural England was blocking all developments because of nutrient neutrality restrictions. Further, the council said that at the present time, there were no identified solutions available to resolve this impact, and that it might be a year before it is resolved. Here we are, 18 months later and Natural England is still blocking the developments without any solution for these restrictions.
Nutrient neutrality laws are certainly well intentional, but blocking new home building will have little material impact on improving the quality of water, as my noble friend Lord Moylan said. Our waterways and coastline are undeniably in a terrible condition, and the situation is not improving. If anything, it is getting worse with the inability of the water companies to treat water effectively. At the same time, we have an undeniable chronic housing affordability and supply disaster. We see the laws intended to protect against and treat pollution blocking thousands of desperately needed homes while the source of this pollution runs practically unchecked. The water companies can do what they like.
The wastewater from all my houses goes into my sewage treatment plant which is emptied regularly so that no mucky water can get down into the ditch and the rivers. In addition, we have a second reserve tank for any runoff, just in case. How many more months or years do we have to wait until we have a solution? Or is Natural England going to just say, “Sorry, you can’t build at all”? I support the government amendments.