Nutrient Neutrality – implications for planning applications
Along with other councils in Norfolk and elsewhere in the country, the city council has been asked by Natural England to find solutions to ensure that waste water produced by new homes does not increase water pollution.
The city council is aware that the Norfolk Environmental Credits Joint Venture (NEC Ltd) is trading nutrient neutrality credits. As we are not a member of NEC Ltd, there are no credits available to developers in the Norwich area. However, we wanted to assure you as much as possible that we are actively considering different options for mitigation solutions, including whether or not to join the joint venture. No nutrient neutrality solutions are simple and there is no one solution for Norwich.
The city council has its own mitigation scheme with an agreed prioritisation list for sites to which credits will be allocated, as agreed by Cabinet in December 2022. We are in the process of reviewing this which is also likely to take into account the latest position on the redevelopment of Anglia Square.
We are working with other Norfolk councils and Natural England to resolve this issue as soon as we can and encourage people to continue with the submission of pre-application advice requests while we work through this.
Read more information about nutrient neutrality here
