Concerns planning rule changes could be 'incredibly harmful' to Chichester district

Such was the message from district council leader Adrian Moss and Jonathan Brown, cabinet member for the environment, after it was revealed that thousands of homes could be built near waterways nationwide if the rules in the Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill are relaxed.

The Bill is still making its way through the House of Lords, so no details are yet set in stone but Mr Moss made his concerns for Chichester Harbour and the district’s rivers clear.

He said: “It appears that if the Levelling Up Bill is amended as proposed and it becomes law in October, the Habitat Regulations will be altered to stop planning authorities from carrying out an appropriate assessment or from concluding that nutrients may have any negative implications at all for the local environment.

“In other words, regardless of the source or quality of any evidence, planning authorities will be forbidden from refusing planning permission for any development whatever its impact might be on our rivers or the harbour.

“This is quite shocking given Chichester Harbour’s ‘unfavourable declining’ condition as per Natural England and the pollution in local streams and rivers including the Lavant and Ham Brook”

At the moment, developers must prove they will not cause any nutrients to seep into nearby water before they can begin building.

This is known as being nutrient neutral.

While nutrients may sound healthy, flooding an area with substances such as phosphates and nitrates can reduce the quality of water, harm wildlife and cause excess algae growth.

The rules were put in place in 2019 following a ruling by the European Court of Justice.

Mr Moss and Mr Brown acknowledged that the current rules had held up some development proposals, but insisted that the number was ‘limited’.

And there has certainly been no shortage of housing developments in the district

The pair questioned whether it was credible to assume that the removal of the current rules would do anything other than ‘further endanger an already vulnerable landscape and coastal habitats’.

As part of the proposed changes, the government said it would double the investment in Natural England’s Nutrient Mitigation Scheme to £280million.

And £166m in grants would be made available to farmers to improve slurry storage, thus reducing nutrient run-off into rivers and wetland.

Mr Brown said: “While the government talks about new money being made available for nutrient mitigation on a national scale, there is as yet no information on whether any of this money may be made available to fund locally designed schemes.

“There are currently no Natural England schemes in Chichester, and none planned that we are aware of.

“In any case, the amounts being talked about are a drop in the – increasingly polluted – ocean.”