Winchester City Council shortlisted for prestigious planning award
The Winchester Nutrient Mitigation Strategy has been shortlisted under the ‘best project’ award by the Royal Town Planning Institute.
The joint submission from the city council and the Partnership for South Hampshire was based on the work that Winchester City Council has undertaken to protect and improve the water quality of important rivers (Itchen) and chalk streams across the district, while still being able to provide new homes.
Nitrates and Phosphorous (Nutrients) can be harmful to waterways. There is concern that without measures to prevent it, new homes can contribute to adding excessive nutrients into the water. All new developments must be able to demonstrate how they will not contribute to the problem and be ‘nitrate neutral’.
Winchester City Council has been proactive in tackling this key issue and developed a number of schemes to prevent this from happening (Nutrient mitigation). By upgrading city council owned waste-water treatment works (WWTW) and retrofitting council owned properties with water efficiency measures, the homes using these systems will not be adding harmful nutrients to our rivers and streams. The retrofitting measures also have the added advantage of also helping to reduce people’s water bills.
Instead of relying on third party mitigation schemes, the city council has created its own – and is the first council owned phosphorous mitigation in the Solent area.
An initial pilot scheme, funded by the city council, to upgrade two WWTWs was completed last year. Working with Partnership for South Hampshire, the city council has been able to access the Local Nutrient Mitigation Fund (LNMF) to be able to start work on upgrading a further 10 WWTWs this year.
Councillor Jackie Porter, Cabinet Member for Place and the Local Plan, said: “Being shortlisted for this award is testament to the teams’ commitment and ingenuity in finding solutions to an important but complex issue which both protects our rivers and waterways, but still allows for the development of much needed homes. I am delighted the Royal Institute for Town planners has recognised this project and we look forward to hearing the outcome.”
Councillor Keith House, Chair of the Partnership for South Hampshire, added: "This is great recognition for work being done in our region to safeguard the environment while enabling much-needed development. As a partnership we work collectively to ensure councils are in the best possible position to deliver projects like that will benefit everyone."
The finalists will be announced in July.