Applications for planning permission required to demonstrate water neutrality

Applications for planning permission in the majority of Crawley will now have to demonstrate to Crawley Borough Council as the Local Planning Authority that they do not increase pressure on water resources – in other words show that they are “water neutral”.

This follows a position statement from Natural England, the government’s advisors on the environment, which advocates that until an agreed water neutrality strategy is in place and secured, decisions on planning applications within Southern Water’s Sussex North Water Supply Zone – where these would have an increased water demand implication - should be deferred. Most of Crawley borough is situated within the Sussex North supply zone except Maidenbower, Gatwick Airport and land to the north of Manor Royal.

Water in the Sussex North area includes supplies sourced from abstraction points that drain water from designated nature conservation and protection sites in the Arun Valley. Natural England is concerned that this abstraction may be causing adverse impacts on the integrity of these internationally important sites.

Developers / planning applicants who can demonstrate water neutrality such as having significant water efficiency measures built into their development and by providing offsetting measures to reduce water consumption from existing development, and who are able to enter into legal obligations to secure these measures, would be able to proceed, subject to the planning process. The onus is on developers and planning applicants to demonstrate that they can deliver water neutrality for their proposals. For applications in these circumstances which are not able to do this, the Local Planning Authority [the council] when determining a decision, would unfortunately have no choice but to refuse them, as a matter of law, in light of the Natural England Statement.

The Local Planning Authority [the council] has written urgently to agents of affected applicants advising them of Natural England’s position and advising them that, for the time being, all applications where a positive decision / recommendation was / is to be made on an application will have to be delayed if they are within the Southern Water supply zone, until the matter of water neutrality can be addressed.