AROUND 12,000 homes in Somerset are still in limbo due to the phosphates crisis, according to the latest Somerset Council figures.

Thousands of new properties across Somerset have been prevented from being delivered following the Dutch N court ruling and the resulting legal advice issued by Natural England in August 2020.

The ruling, in a nutshell, requires developers to secure additional mitigation to prevent any net increase in phosphates within the catchments of internationally protected Ramsar sites – including areas across the Somerset Levels and Moors.

Since the ruling, the council has been seeking to ‘unlock’ housing developments through a number of different methods – including fallowing agricultural land, delivering new wetlands and creating ‘phosphate credits’ systems to allow developers to financially contribute to mitigation.

Some of these initiatives have begun to bear fruit, with around 6,000 new homes being unlocked and numerous long-awaited applications being approved.

But in spite of this, nearly 12,000 homes remain in limbo of which just over half will need to secure mitigation very quickly if they are to be delivered by 2032.

A detailed update on the phosphates crisis came before the council’s strategic planning committee when it convened in Taunton on Monday morning (September 17).

The Somerset Levels and Moors catchment area includes three main rivers – the River Brue, the River Parrett and the River Tone.

Each individual river catchment originally had separate phosphate credit systems operating there, since the Natural England legal advice was issued before the four district councils were replaced by Somerset Council in April 2023.

The cost of phosphate credits varies greatly depending upon the availability of land which can be fallowed and whether the local waste water treatment plant will be upgraded under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (known as LURA).

Councillor Sue Osborne said: “Do we know how much agricultural land has been taken out of commission to secure these phosphate mitigation measures?

“There is increasing concern about how much productive agricultural land could be lost, and food security is becoming a bigger issue.”