'Fundamental changes' to planning system needed to stop developers polluting streams and rivers in Yorkshire

All members of Conservative-run North Yorkshire Council will discuss this issue at a full council meeting next month after a proposal was made by its transport, economy and environment scrutiny committee which recommended the Government is lobbied on making the changes, along with a series of other proposals to get to grips with water pollution in the county.

The committee members want to consider pressing Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsThérèse Coffey to make a series of changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.

The committee meeting heard councillors raise serious concerns over water pollution in rivers such as the Swale and Ure, which run through Rishi Sunak's Richmond constituency, as well as the county's coastal waters, where marine life has repeatedly been impacted by a mystery issue in the water.

Liberal Democrat councillor Steve Mason told the meeting the proposals, which include introducing set standards for drainage systems, needed bolstering by national policy to ensure developers could not use devices such as viability tests to avoid consideration of water issues.

He said: "We need to be lobbying hard for this to be included in national legislation."

Councillor Hannah Gostlow, whose division includes Knaresborough and the River Nidd, which saw 870 sewage dump incidents last year, said lobbying Government would be viewed as "a major step" by the authority.

Earlier this year it was revealed that the Nidd Action Group and Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones are campaigning for a stretch of the Nidd at Knaresborough to be granted bathing water status, as part of a drive to clean up the watercourse.

The proposed measures will aim to establish what the impacts and receptors are in relation to any development.

The meeting heard that neither Local Plan policies nor national framework have the capacity to extend consideration in planning decisions to where foul water is in the main sewer, in terms of how it is treated.

Councillors were told a motion of council, to make water issues a "material planning consideration" would be of limited weight, and were they to be treated as having more weight in a development decision than the Local Plan or national framework, the decision could be challenged by developers at appeal.

Councillors from a range of political groups told the meeting there was a clear mandate to seek to have more robust engagement with water firms "to fully understand capacity constraints and opportunities".

It is hoped making water firms statutory consultees in planning decisions, in the same way as exists for flooding and highways authorities, would allow the companies to embed expanding their capacity and technologies to reduce the incidence of flooding, whilst accommodating increased usage.

After the meeting, the council's leader, Councillor Carl Les, said he sympathised with proposals to make water firms statutory consultees in planning decisions.

He said he believed councillors would all support lobbying the Government to enable water firms to levy infrastructure charges on property developers to enable them to finance improving the capacity of systems such as sewage.

When asked whether the Government should introduce a tougher system of fines for pollution breaches, Coun Les said he was concerned water users would face increased charges to cover the firms' fines.