River pollution now a risk to county council’s prosperity

Elgan Hearn, local democracy reporter

River pollution is now a major risk to future housing developments and the economic prosperity of Powys, according to senior councillors.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour Cabinet on Tuesday, October 15 councillors met to discuss changes to the council’s Strategic Risk Register.

The report explains that the register is key to safeguarding the council and building resilience into its services.

Phosphate levels

Finance portfolio holder Labour’s Cllr David Thomas told his colleagues that the planning department wanted to escalate a risk for what could happen if phosphate/nutrient levels exceed the target in Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) which include the rivers Usk and Wye and their tributaries.

Cllr Thomas said: “This is requested by the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) and is due to the continued lack of tangible progress on resolving river phosphates.

“This is preventing the development of new housing including social in Powys adding to demand and raising the cost of homes in these areas and reduced income from Council Tax.”

In 2021 environment body Natural Resources Wales published new stricter targets for phosphate levels in rivers that are SACs.

The problems are due to a lack of phosphate stripping abilities in some public wastewater facilities and Welsh Water are said to be working on a five year plan to improve facilities in parts of the county.

Intensive Poultry Units

While the link between Intensive Poultry Units (IPU) and river pollution remains inconclusive, there is an effectively an unofficial moratorium on IPU applications in Powys.

The Welsh Government planning inspectors are still mulling over calling in 13 applications to decide them or not, some of which have been waiting for a decision for 18 months and more.

Planning portfolio holder, Liberal Democrat Cllr Jake Berriman said: “I’m certainly in favour or escalating on the basis that we are reviewing the Local Development Plan at the moment.

“This is a really big issue for every community council in these affected areas.”

He explained that it would hinder candidate sites for potential future housing or industrial development from being brought forward for inclusion in the next version of the LDP.

Cllr Berriman said: “And when we bring the new LDP forward we can only allocate sites with assurance where we believe they can overcome the risks through works with Welsh Water or with the farming community to address more diffuse pollution issues.

Cllr Berriman explained that talks on this issue had been taking place with the Welsh Government, but they had “petered out” over the summer.

Cllr Berriman believed there was an “opportunity” now for First Minister Eluned Morgan’s new administration to have “another look” at the problems.

Cross-border

Cllr Berriman said: “This issue will not be solved here alone.

“It’s a cross border issue and our colleagues in Herefordshire feel this acutely and I hope there is an opportunity for us to work with both governments with some urgency.”

Cabinet unanimously supported escalating the risk which joins another 14 that were on the register at the end of June.

The report says that the potential impacts of the river phosphates issue from include:

Lower level of development communities in the river Wye, Usk catchments and their tributaries.

A backlog of planning application would be caused by limited planning ecologist resource.

Less planning applications would result in less income for the planning department.

The delivery of projects such as council house building, schools, and regeneration.

The economy, in particular meeting future economic and community need