The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has gone out tender with a contract for monitoring and evaluation of the £3.9 million Solent nutrient trading pilot project.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has gone out tender with a contract for monitoring and evaluation of the £3.9 million Solent nutrient trading pilot project.
In September 2020, Her Majesty’s Treasury confirmed £3.9 million funding from the Shared Outcomes Fund (SOF) to trial market and nature-based solutions to unblock housing delivery in the Solent whilst understanding nitrate pollution pathways and impacts on protected wildlife sites in the Solent area.
The funding covers:
- Enhancing the evidence on the different sources of pollution of protected sites and on the effectiveness of NBS for Nitrogen mitigation
- Developing opportunity mapping for NBS investment across the catchment, which will unlock development
- Developing a nutrient trading process, including online platform, for long term N mitigation
- Running reverse auctions using the platform for price discovery
- Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of process and impact
The pilot will develop and trial a nutrient trading platform and reverse auction process, connecting developers with land managers willing to deliver nature-based solutions for nitrate pollution mitigation.
The Solent is home to a range of nationally & internationally important habitats. However, many of these habitats are in unfavourable condition due to excess nutrients (particularly nitrates) in the water from a range of sources, including agriculture and wastewater.
Natural England has advised local planning authorities that demonstrating 'nutrient neutrality' (i.e. zero net impact on nitrogen pollution of the protected sites for 80 years) is a way of allowing development to proceed, while ensuring it does not further damage the condition of the protected site features.
This can be achieved through various means, including by securing proportionate nitrogen reduction elsewhere in the catchment by taking land out of intensive agricultural use and creating habitat for wildlife.
There is an estimated backlog of at least 4,500 houses (at least partly due to nitrate pollution) across the Solent catchment awaiting planning permission; a lack of offsite mitigation projects has meant some developments have struggled to demonstrate 'nutrient neutrality'.
Defra is now piloting a nutrient trading process to enable developers and local planning authorities in need of nitrogen pollution mitigation solutions to connect via an online platform with land managers able to provide such solutions. For example, farmers who are willing to take some of their land out of intensive agricultural production and commit it to meadow, woodland or wetland for at least 80 years.
The project will test the feasibility and costs of this approach, using a reverse auction process, and explore how multiple benefits for people and nature can be maximised. This approach will bring together the relevant local actors - house builders and developers, local authorities, landowners (including farmers and wildlife organisations) and statutory bodies Natural England and the Environment Agency. If successful, the pilot will unlock housing delivery whilst delivering wider environmental benefits.
Defra will then look to roll out the approach to other parts of England.
Deadline to respond to the tender is 25 June 2021 - click here to access the tender documentation.
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