Chicken poo a factor in housing moratoriums, MPs told
Agricultural pollution in rivers has led to a halt on housing in areas along the border between England and Wales.
Chicken poo is a factor in low housing growth along the England and Wales border, MPs have heard.
Poultry farming creates “significant challenges” for the River Wye, water minister Emma Hardy told MPs in Westminster Hall on Wednesday.
Catherine Fookes, the Labour MP who tabled the debate about rivers, lakes and seas, described cleaning up waterways across the country as part of her party’s “growth mission”.
But Green Party MP Ellie Chowns said agricultural pollution in the Wye, which crosses her North Herefordshire constituency, is an “elephant in the room” which she fears the new water sector commission might fail to address.
She and David Chadwick, the Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, both raised housebuilding moratoriums in their constituencies, introduced to limit river pollution.
Ms Hardy told MPs: “Maintaining healthy and clean water sources (is) vital to achieving this Government’s mission for economic growth.”
She added: “Water bodies such as the River Wye and the River Usk in Monmouthshire face significant challenges due to agricultural run-off from intensive poultry farming, leading to high phosphate levels in our water.”
According to Lancaster University’s RePhoKUs project, a “rapid expansion” of the poultry industry means birds have now overtaken cattle as the main producer of manure phosphorus in the Wye.
In turn, a “very high phosphorus input pressure being exerted on the Wye catchment is driven by the large agricultural phosphorus surplus”.
The minister said the Environment Act 2021, secured under the previous government, set a legally binding target to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment contribution from agriculture by at least 40% by 2038.
This could be combined with investment into environmental land management schemes, she added, bolstered with new permitted development rights for farmers so they can build slurry stores, anaerobic digesters and small reservoirs.
Ms Chowns said: “Hundreds of millions of pounds of damage to the Herefordshire economy has been caused by the fact that the levels of pollution mean that we’ve had a moratorium on house building since 2019 – really serious damage.”
She pointed to the terms of reference for a new independent commission on water sector regulation, which will not look at agriculture regulation.
“The commission does not tackle the elephant in the room,” Ms Chowns added.
“Agricultural pollution is responsible for more pollution across the country than sewage is. In constituencies such as mine, in the Wye catchment, it is the large majority.”
Ms Fookes, the MP for Monmouthshire, had earlier said: “We need to look upon some of this cleaning-up of our waterways as an absolute integral part of our growth mission.”
She added: “We know tackling diffuse pollution from agriculture will be a hard nut to crack when farmers are already under pressure.”
Mr Chadwick referred to a moratorium on new homes in Talgarth, Powys, adding: “The impact of the inability to clean up our rivers is hurting local communities in my constituency.
“We know there is a housing crisis, caused by a shortage of affordable homes.”
