Duty to upgrade sewage treatments should be expanded

All wastewater treatment works serving a population of 250 or more should be upgraded before the end of the decade, according to a House of Lords committee.

Facilities which serve below 2,000 people are currently exempt from legal obligations to improve wastewater treatments works by 2030.

However, the House of Lords Built Environment Committee claims that the current exemption is having a negative effect on housing schemes in villages and smaller communities.

It claims that the exemption is creating an “effective moratoria on housebuilding” in smaller areas “as nutrient and water neutrality risk putting small developers out of business in affected areas”.

“The exemption from upgrading for wastewater treatment works for those serving below 2,000 people is likely to mean there are no improvements for many rural areas and small housing schemes in villages, which are often delivered by small and medium-sized developers,” the report concludes.

“Following the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, the Secretary of State should use their powers to ensure that all wastewater treatment works with capacity for a population of 250 are upgraded by the 2030 deadline.”

The recommendation is made within a House of Lords Built Environment Committee report which provides a damning assessment of the impact environmental regulations are having on the country’s housing developments.

The report adds that unclear nutrient and water neutrality guidance is having “serious ramifications” on property developments, with some smaller developers at risk of going out of business.

It comes just one week after the Lords voted down government legislation which aimed to relax nutrient neutrality measures.

The government claimed that relaxing the rules around the pollution of waterways would free up developers to build thousands of homes.

The committee agrees that “new housing is bearing the brunt” of a “lack of water adequacy in parts of the country”.

However, instead of scrapping the current environmental rules, the committee recommends that housebuilding targets should be given statutory weight, giving them an equal status with environmental goals.

“It should be possible to deliver both new development and improve the environment, but a lack of leadership and poor implementation is limiting opportunities to do this,” it adds.

Lord Moylan, chair of the Built Environment Committee, said: “The current approach to managing any conflict between new homes and the needs of the environment is failing to deliver for either side.

“Our inquiry found that the achievement of the government’s housing and environmental policies has been hampered and sometimes completely blocked by lack of co-ordination in policy-making and haphazard and unbalanced implementation.

“There is no way the government can deliver on its housebuilding targets unless it is brave and displays the political leadership necessary to deliver and implement a comprehensive strategy for both development and the environment.

“A good starting point would be to give housebuilding statutory weight which would ensure it has equal status with environmental goals. After that, coherent, cross-government plans should be developed to address major pollutants and to ensure that money is expended where it will have the most impact. This cannot happen overnight. We must be prepared with a long term plan.”

The committee has also cast doubt on the government’s solution to nutrient pollution set out within the Plan for Water.

It adds that the proposals are “not yet able to deliver genuine change” and the committee accuses the government of having “shied away from taking the necessary decisions and risks failing to improve the situation”.

The report adds that there is a lack of coordination between Defra, the Environment Agency and Natural England which often leads to “contradictory advice” being issued on topics such as nutrient neutrality.

It said the scope of each agency should be investigated to avoid work “overlapping”, while also suggesting that there should be a review to determine any “gaps in expertise”.