Nutrient Reduction Programme

NB. The Trust cannot work out the nitrogen load for developers, you will need to agree this with Natural England or your Local Planning Authority before submitting an Expression of Interest Form. 

The Trust has established a number of tests that we require developments to comply with before we will sell nitrate credits to them (see below).  We will contact the Planning Officer to confirm that the tests have been met as part of our internal processes 

The Trust will typically sell nitrate credits on a first-come-first-serve basis, although other factors will also influence which applications are accepted and in which order (see next section).  As there is currently limited capacity it would be useful to register your interest as soon as possible. 

Once we have secured mitigation sites and agreed the capacity of the site with Natural England the Trust will be able to finalise the cost per kg of nitrogen offset. In addition to the cost per kg, which we currently estimate will be in the region of £2,500 - £3,000 per kg, excluding VAT, an administration fee of £1,000 will be applied for each transaction (not each kg of nitrogen) plus legal fees.  We will aim to keep legal fees as low as possible.  Nitrate credits will be sold to developers either through a conditional contract for larger developments contingent on the granting of planning permission, with payment due shortly after planning permission has been granted or by a simple sale for smaller developments, usually those below 5kg. 

The Trust will aim to enter into agreements with all the Local Planning Authorities which will reduce the need for individual developers to enter into separate nitrate Section 106 agreements. 

The Trust is in negotiation to purchase of a number of sites, however, we cannot guarantee that we will have offsetting options available for all development locations available at a given time and subject to our own screening process. 

If you would like to discuss the programme, please email nitrates@hiwwt.org.uk with your query. 

1. The development should be in an adopted Local Plan or be approved by the planning officer for the relevant local authority. Under certain circumstances, windfall developments and those outside of an adopted Local Plan will be deemed acceptable where they ensure full compliance with the other criteria outlined below. 

2. The development should not carry an objection from Natural England or the local authority ecologist or the Wildlife Trust, and not lead to loss of irreplaceable biodiversity.  

3. The development should demonstrate compliance with ecological mitigation required by the statutory bodies especially with respect to designated sites (e.g. water pollution and provision of sites used by coastal birds – see note below).  

4. If necessary, and in compliance with 3), the development must make contributions to mitigation schemes such as Bird Aware Solent and New Forest mitigation schemes or have an equivalent or better scheme in place. 

5. Where there is over demand for credits, preference will be given to developments which demonstrate biodiversity net gain, delivery of the Local Ecological Network or adoption of the Building with Nature green infrastructure principles. 

Of relevance to 3) in southern Hampshire and the north of the Isle of Wight is any impacts, direct or indirect, on the network of sites used by coastal birds which are features of the Solent Special Protection Area. These sites have been assessed and mapped in the Solent Waders & Brent Goose Strategy³ and all sites which are classed as ‘Core’ are not deemed appropriate for development under any circumstances. We expect the mitigation guidelines within this strategy to be followed. 

NB. 5) Building with Nature https://www.buildingwithnature.org.uk/about 

The sale of credits is subject to your planning application passing our tests and our ecological screening process, and being located within an area where we have a mitigation option available (see below for more on this). Our current site is now at capacity. A second site, covering developments within the Local Planning Authorities in southeast Hampshire and discharging to Budds Farm or Peel Common wastewater treatment works, or within the Eastern Yar catchment, will be coming online shortly. This is subject to the signing of legal agreements with the relevant local authorities which can take some time. At present, we expect the sale of credits to begin no earlier than mid-September 2021 but this may be delayed by circumstances outside of our control. We will contact you when the sale of credits can begin, subject to your scheme passing our tests and ecological screening process.

As above, our current site is at capacity, and we will be in touch when the second site comes online and we are ready to sell credits.

If you have submitted an EOI for a pre-application scheme, please be aware we will not be able to process your request until you have a full or outline planning application under consideration with your Local Planning Authority. Your planning application reference number will be required for the legal paperwork and the associated planning documents will need to be reviewed as part of our screening process. However, we’re happy to conduct an initial screen of your proposal to give an informal opinion of whether the scheme is likely to be acceptable; please email nitrates@hiwwt.org.uk to request this. We will need a site boundary and outline of the proposals to do this. Informal opinions will not oblige the Trust to sell credits at a later date: the application will still be assessed fully when submitted to the LPA. Please note that the clearance of sites before ecological surveys can take place is considered bad practice by the Trust and may result in the development failing our screening process.

We do not currently have any options for these catchments; however, we are in discussions with landowners in the New Forest and Test Valley. We hope that a new site for the New Forest may be available in late autumn of 2021 but we cannot confirm a date by which credits will be available for sale at this time. Our website will be updated should options in the Test and Itchen or New Forest catchments come online sooner. However, you may wish to explore other options on the Partnership for South Hampshire website: https://www.push.gov.uk/work/mitigation-schemes-available-to-developers/

This is governed by the way sediments and nutrients flow around the Solent, which was determined from modelling work carried out by Natural England to better understand this natural process. NE found that the Solent operates as a series of sub-catchments rather than one large catchment. In order to mitigate effectively for discharges to the Solent, mitigation sites for offsetting must therefore be located within the same sub-catchment as the wastewater treatment works used for the development. For example, our current site on the Isle of Wight can mitigate for developments in Fareham as this falls under the East Solent Fluvial Catchment, which covers Wastewater Treatment Works at Peel Common and Budds Lane in Hampshire, as well as those discharging to the northeast rivers of the Island. Discharges to Chichester Harbour, on the other hand, fall under a different sub-catchment and would require a mitigation site located in the Chichester area.

You can find more information about this in the document Advice on Achieving Nutrient Neutrality v5 June, p26-27 (the link will take you directly to a pdf on the Partnership for South Hampshire website).

The cost of each credit depends to a certain extent on the cost of securing the mitigation land. We aim to keep costs to a minimum and estimate that we will be charging between £2500 and £3500 per kg. These costs exclude the legal (£1500-£3500 per transaction) and administration fee (£1000-£3500 per transaction depending on the scale of work required), and are exclusive of VAT.

The Trust does not carry out assessments of nitrate requirements for developers; we feel this might represent a conflict of interest, given our role in selling the mitigation credits. There are a number of planning agents and consultants who are offering these services, though, and can provide you with the information you require.

The Trust’s scheme has been up and running since the autumn of 2020 and we have a well-developed and proven methodology and processes in place. Our approach has been signed off by Natural England and has been validated by Fareham Borough Council. To date our scheme has seen well over 50 planning permissions granted.

Crucially, the Trust’s scheme puts wildlife recovery at the centre of our approach. Not only are we aiming to create a series of incredible nature reserves at the mitigation sites, but our scheme also aims to reduce nitrates in the Solent and not merely aim for neutrality. We therefore remove an additional 5% of nitrates over and above the number we sell to you with the aim of helping the Solent recover.

We are examining the opportunity to stack benefits on mitigation land with biodiversity and carbon mitigation options being considered. Working in these additional facets does increase the complexity of the scheme but we feel it does present opportunity to add additional benefits and reduce costs for the developers. We will be further developing the options in these areas over coming months. If you would like to discuss our BNG offer please email your interest to nitrates@hiwwt.org.uk in the first instance.

You will first need to get formal confirmation from either the Local Planning Authority or Natural England as to which catchment they feel it comes under – we can’t make the judgement on this. Once this is known, we can confirm whether your proposal can be mitigated by one of our sites in the same way as proposals discharging to mains systems (See: Why can’t I buy credits to offset a site in a different catchment?, and: Can you sell me credits / when can I buy credits?).

We recognise that circumstances change over the course of a planning application but please make every effort to supply the correct information up front. Changes to the legal entity details for credit sales, planning application reference numbers, and/or reducing the number of credits purchased can generally be accommodated but will attract an administrative fee of £150+VAT per amendment (and sometimes further legal fees). Increasing the amount of nitrate mitigation required may be possible but will be dependent on whether sufficient capacity remains at our mitigation site(s). This will also attract further administrative and legal fees. Please get in touch via the nitrates@hiwwt.org.uk address as soon as possible if you need to make changes to your application for credits.