Agenda item

The Executive Member for Regeneration submitted a report for Executive’s consideration.

The report set out the background to Nutrient Neutrality and the Council’s approach to dealing with it and sought approval for the assessment of the Council’s land holdings to be used as mitigation to achieve Nutrient Neutrality.

On 16th March 2022, Natural England published statutory advice for certain local planning authorities, including Middlesbrough Council, which set out a requirement for new developments to achieve Nutrient Neutrality. All planning authorities within the Tees River Catchment were affected by this advice, due to excess levels of nitrogen being recorded in the River Tees.

The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (as amended) were the UK’s transposition of European Union Directive 92/43/EEC on the ‘Conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora’ (the Habitats Directive). The Habitats Directive stated:

‘[Whereas] an appropriate assessment must be made of any plan or programme likely to have a significant effect on the conservation objectives of a site which has been designated or is designated in future”.

The Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast Special Protection Area and Ramsar Site (in the report referred to as the SPA) was a designated European habitat site, meaning it was offered the highest level of protection under the legislation. The Council, in its role as the ‘Competent Authority’, had a statutory duty to ensure that new development proposals accorded with this legislation. Therefore, the Council was prohibited from allowing development proposals to proceed if they were likely to have a significant effect on the SPA.

The statutory advice issued by Natural England meant that certain developments, which could lead to an increase in the level of nitrogen in the River Tees, could not proceed without achieving Nutrient Neutrality.

OPTIONS

If the Council wished to bring forward its own land for in-scope housing development, then it was likely that offsite mitigation would need to be secured. This could be done through Natural England’s Nutrient Mitigation Scheme or any alternative third-party mitigation scheme (should they have been forthcoming).

It could also have been achieved through the acquisition of alternative agricultural land elsewhere in the Tees Catchment, or the development of constructed wetlands.

All of these were likely to be costly and/or time consuming to achieve, potentially making it more challenging to bring Council-owned land forward for development. It was not recommended that any of these options be pursued in the absence of full consideration of using the Council’s own landholdings.

ORDERED

That Executive:

1.    Agree to take the sites identified in Appendix 4 out of agricultural use, once all existing farm business tenancies have expired, so that they can be used as mitigation to achieve Nutrient Neutrality; and

2.    Delegate authority to the Director of Regeneration, in consultation with the Executive Member for Regeneration, to agree an internal credit system for the allocation of nitrogen credits to mitigate the impact of new housing development.

REASONS

To enable the use of the Council’s landholdings to support the delivery of new housing, which is either being brought forward on Council-owned land or by third parties elsewhere.