The government is being confronted with a legal dispute regarding their proposal to authorize housebuilders in England to potentially cause sewage contamination “on the sly”.
The organization Wild Justice, in collaboration with the legal firm Leigh Day, has filed a proposal for a legal review regarding what they consider to be an illegal effort to implement a modification through guidelines that was previously rejected by the House of Lords in the previous year.
At present, in environmentally delicate regions like the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, developers are required to stop additional sewage from entering water sources. This can be achieved through upgrading existing infrastructure or purchasing biodiversity credits, which enhance the surrounding natural environment and offset the added pollution. These regulations were initially implemented by the EU in order to mitigate harmful accumulation of algae and other vegetation that can harm aquatic ecosystems.
In the previous year, Michael Gove, the secretary in charge of levelling up, suggested a change to the levelling up and regeneration legislation that would eliminate the directive from the official records. This alteration would have given developers the ability to disregard regulations.
The proposed legislation was rejected twice by the House of Lords due to the Labour party’s clear opposition to what they deemed as “risky” proposals.
Although the bill was ultimately approved, the amendment did not pass. There are now accusations that the government is attempting to reintroduce it in a sneaky manner by issuing a new notice. This notice states that planning authorities must assume that water companies have upgraded their sewage infrastructure to reduce pollution by April 1, 2030, even if they have not actually done so.
Despite the mandate for water companies to implement these enhancements, Wild Justice and Leigh Day contend that there is no means of verifying compliance. This allows housebuilders to potentially exceed the allowed pollution levels even after the designated deadline.
According to Ricardo Gama, a lawyer at Leigh Day, the government’s attempt to remove legal protections for important habitats was met with strong opposition from environmental groups and a defeat in the House of Lords last year. However, it seems that the government is now trying to achieve the same outcome through indirect means.
The previous revision also stated that planning authorities must operate under the assumption that new developments will not cause any sewage pollution, in order to bypass the regulations set by the EU.
The shadow environment secretary, Steve Reed MP, said: “The Conservative government created the housing crisis, then made it worse by scrapping housebuilding targets. To cover up that failure, they are cooking up plans that risk irreparable damage to rivers already awash with toxic sewage.
“Labour is committed to building the homes Britain so desperately needs, while protecting our natural environment. We will speed up the planning process to get spades in the ground and build 1.5m homes over the next parliament while protecting our rivers from pollution.”
According to a statement from a government representative, the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act allows for the identification of specific regions where water companies must improve wastewater treatment facilities by April 2030 in order to decrease nutrient pollution in our water systems.
“These improvements will lessen pollution from its origin, providing positive effects for the environment, while also aiding in the creation of necessary housing for communities by lessening the burden of mitigation during development. Any water company that fails to implement these upgrades within the designated timeframe will be responsible for remedying the situation.”
Source: theguardian.com
