This section of the webpage contains all the information you should need for your application. It is critical that water quality is robustly considered during the determination of relevant planning applications in Havant Borough in order for any planning permission to be considered lawful.

The Position Statement and Mitigation Plan for Nutrient Neutral Development and accompanying European Sites Avoidance and Mitigation Checklist sets out how development proposals should consider the issue. This sets out the mechanisms for development to achieve nutrient neutrality.

For development to calculate their occupancy rate which will be used in the applications nutrient budget they should use and submit the Council’s occupancy calculator.

Please note that mitigation costs for recreational disturbance and the Council’s nutrient neutrality mitigation are revised at the start of each financial year. Please use the most up to date documents when submitting an application.

The Council has produced the following process notes to provide a step by step explanation for what applications need to do in order to address nutrient neutrality.

Natural England’s advice for achieving nutrient neutrality and calculating the nutrient budget for planning applications can be found below:

Natural England updated guidance and calculators (2022) 

Natural England Solent Nutrients Guidance (v5 June 2020)

Following the national rollout of updated guidance and catchment calculators in early 2022, Natural England as the relevant statutory body has confirmed that certain aspects of their 2020 Solent nutrients guidance remain relevant: 

The Council has the following reports and documents which have informed our approach to this issue:

Havant Borough Council is responsible for ongoing monitoring of Third Party Nutrient Mitigation Schemes. When accepting mitigation from such schemes for example Warnford Park Estate, the Council will need to seek a payment from the applicant to contribute towards these costs. The amount payable will be 1% of the total overall kilogramme (kg) purchase cost. Where this is calculated to be less than £100, a minimum fee of £100 will be payable.

Water Efficiency Calculator

For guidance on how to complete a water efficiency calculator and what should be included please refer to Appendix A (pages 36-44) of the ‘The Building Regulations 2010 – Sanitation, hot water safety and water efficiency’.