Water Neutrality – Latest News

Many developers and practitioners in the South East will be aware of the requirement for most forms of new development in the Sussex North Water Resource Zone (SNWRZ) to demonstrate water neutrality. The requirement comes as a result of concerns raised by Natural England regarding the impact of existing water extraction near Hardham on protected environmental sites located in the Arun Valley. The SNWRZ primarily covers land within Crawley Borough, Horsham District, Chichester District, and part of the South Downs National Park.

 

Over the past year, the affected authorities have been jointly developing a water offsetting scheme known as ‘SNOWS’ (‘Sussex North Offsetting Water Scheme’). SNOWS is expected to comprise a catalogue of sites with capacity to offset the residual water demand generated by new development, after all onsite water reduction measures are exhausted.

 

Once in operation, developers will be able to apply to gain access to this scheme via a credit-based system, although further detail on access prioritisation is expected closer to the launch date. It has been announced however that speculative applications will no longer be able to request access to SNOWS. Previously it was thought that speculative applications could apply but given low priority; however, this is no longer the case. It has now been confirmed that SNOWS will be designed to support plan-led development only, meaning that only applications that accord with an adopted development plan, or an emerging plan, will be able to access the scheme.

 

Sites with a draft allocation in an emerging local plan may be able to access SNOWS, but the level of priority is expected to be weighted depending on the status of the local plan examination.

 

The expected launch date for SNOWS is currently late 2024, although this may be affected by the General Election and the further work being undertaken on the evidence base.  SNOWS is considering granting access to the scheme in advance of the official launch, although it is currently unclear if this will be possible.

 

SNOWS is expected to operate until Southern Water have implemented sufficient measures to mitigate the impacts of their abstractions near Hardham.  As a minimum however, it is intended to be in place until the end of the upcoming local plan period for each district or borough, so that the affected authorities can demonstrate that their local plans are water neutral.

 

Separately, the affected authorities are seeking to introduce a joint policy approach to ensure consistency in decision making, based on a shared evidence base. Draft policy wording on water neutrality has already been included in the emerging Horsham (Regulation 19 draft) and Crawley (Submission version) Local Plans. There is also understood to be a working group with representatives from all affected authorities to agree water neutrality principles for applications on emerging proposals.

 

SNOWS is asking for expressions of interest from large landowners with high water usage (such as schools, commercial or leisure sites). If you would like to discuss the potential of your site with DHA before approaching SNOWS, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

For further details on water neutrality, please contact DHA Planning’s Hannah McLaughlin or Lauren Sinden.