Latest news with #MaidsMoreton
Telegraph
2 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
The sewage battle that could scupper Labour's new homes plan
Sometimes, when there's heavy rain in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, waste bursts from the drain below Ian and Lilian McDonald's garden with such force that it lifts the manhole and its heavy concrete base in the middle of the couple's immaculate lawn, spewing gallons of ankle-deep dark brown sewage for days. 'It blasts out. It makes a pool that rotates with bog roll and everything in it,' says Ian, 87, a retired RAF worker, pointing to his pond at the bottom of the garden where most ends up. 'It's ruined the watercress. It keeps going till the pressure drops.' Anglian Water, responsible for the water supply to the 350 houses in their tiny village, has no plan to improve its overburdened sewage system, which is not only wreaking havoc with drainage but also polluting the local river, the Great Ouse. Yet in 2022, Buckinghamshire Council granted developers permission to build a further 153 houses here, which would place it under ever more strain. 'It's ludicrous to add more into this system which isn't coping at the moment,' says Lilian, 83, a retired teacher. 'Crackers,' concurs Ian, staring at the manhole in disbelief. At first, a clause prohibited building before the sewage works – at capacity since 2015 – have been updated. But last year the developers, David Wilson Homes South Midlands, part of the UK's largest housebuilder Barratt Redrow, successfully fought for it to be amended – and once houses are built, water companies have a statutory duty to connect them to the sewage system, regardless of capacity. However, under the planning terms nobody is allowed to move into the houses until there is sewage capacity for them, creating an absurd situation reflective of a wider national crisis, in which beleaguered water companies operating sewage systems no longer fit for purpose appear – to put it kindly – incapable of working coherently with councils under pressure to accommodate Labour's plans to build new 1.5 million homes by 2029 and developers doggedly seeking profit. The Environment Agency found sewage spills more than doubled in 2023, from 1.75 million hours to 3.6 million hours, and last month Ofwat, the regulator for the water and sewerage sectors in England and Wales, fined Thames Water nearly £123 million for breaching rules relating to its wastewater operations. Sewage not only 'suffocates fish because it's taking the oxygen out of the water,' says Dr Justin Neal, solicitor for environmental charity Wildfish, which has secured a judicial review at the High Court later this year, challenging the Maids Moreton planning permission. 'It kills plant life and insects. It destroys the ecosystem the fish depend on. We want to make sure that if there is house building there is capacity in the sewage works.' Neal describes poor sewage systems as 'ubiquitous' in England and Wales. 'There's a lack of capacity.' Next door to the McDonald's home at the bottom of the hill Maids Moreton sits on, neighbour Bob Christopher, a retired insurance worker, shows me a memo from the council's environmental health officer to its planning department, declaring 'no objections' to the development 'from an Environmental Health point of view'. Yet, according to the Environment Agency, sewage pollution is one reason the Great Ouse is failing to achieve 'good ecological status'. Bob, 80, says: 'It makes me cross. If the council turns a blind eye, I think the situation could get very serious.' Wife Georgie, 79, adds: 'We're trying to look after the environment, not make it worse.' Anglian Water, too, seems keen to downplay the effects of the development. In an internal memo dated this March, released under the Freedom of Information Act and seen by The Telegraph, it says 'the additional foul flow generated by the proposed development would create an unacceptable risk of flooding to our existing customers and the environment.' Yet it's just a month later claims the exact opposite – that 'the additional foul flow from the proposed development would not create an unacceptable risk of flooding to our existing customers and the environment.' Anglian Water declined to explain its apparent U-turn. Neal believes Ofwat, which, together with the Environment Agency, decides where sewage infrastructure investment is made, should prosecute Anglian Water as it did Thames Water, because the company is 'not in compliance'. Ofwat had already signed off on investment money for Anglian Water, he says, 'and it clearly hadn't been used for the sewage works.' An Ofwat spokesman says: 'Ofwat has an enforcement case against Anglian Water and its wastewater treatment which has not yet concluded. As such, the investigation is ongoing, and it is not appropriate for us to comment at this time.' Now, adds Neal, 'the pressure will be on the council not to put any red lights up. They're worried about legal action from developers.' Nobody I speak to believes the council, which is allowing the houses to be sold, will enforce its own rule of no occupation. 'How does a buyer even know that they might not be able to live in their house? We're all scratching our heads,' says Kate Pryce, 50, a former solicitor and married mother-of-three, the unofficial leader of the residents' campaign group fighting the development, and now an unexpected expert in sewage. 'Houses are being built all over the country where there's no capacity on the basis that there's a statutory duty to connect once houses have been built. It is mad.' We walk waist deep in nettles across a field to a storm discharge point in a nearby stream, from where untreated sewage that the local sewage plant, Buckingham Water Recycling Centre, has insufficient capacity for feeds into the Great Ouse. Kate points out murky shapes in the putrid water: 'This brown stuff is called sewage algae. That is your absolute evidence of sewage discharge.' Back in the village, Sheilagh Rawlins shows me the 22-acre site of the planned development from the upstairs bedroom of the four-bedroom terrace she shares with husband Peter, a retired engineer. The view beyond the roses and spiraea bushes in her garden is bucolic. A tractor silages the hay in fields bordered by a wooded area. 'All those trees will go. That will all be concrete,' she says. A second judicial review challenging the development on the basis of the council's incorrect biodiversity net gain calculation is also due to be heard this year. She asks: 'How can you justify that as a biodiversity gain?' Sheilagh, 62, a chemistry teacher, believes sought-after local grammar schools make the new houses a particularly lucrative prospect. 'It's people like us who've lived here 23 years that will end up with the mess,' she says, on the brink of tears. 'We are not Nimbys. This is about a council and a developer. It has been eye-wateringly painful to watch. What has to happen? Do we have to have an outbreak of dysentery and the village quarantined before somebody sits up and takes notice? It's so wrong. You would have thought regulations were in place to protect us.' A spokesman for David Wilson Homes South Midlands said its development would lead to 'at least a 10 per cent uplift in biodiversity,' and generate a £3.5 million investment in local infrastructure, 'and we will create new, publicly accessible green open spaces with play areas, as well as jobs for the local community.' They added: 'We will ensure a programme of any wastewater upgrades required to support the development has been agreed with Anglian Water. It is also vital that water companies invest in the country's water and sewerage infrastructure so that we can build the homes the country needs, generating new jobs and driving economic growth.' A spokesman for Anglian Water said: 'Although there is currently no dedicated scheme for upgrades at Buckingham Water Recycling Centre, we are currently reviewing and prioritising our growth portfolio for delivery over the next five years. This is a typical part of our planning process between investment cycles.' Peter Strachan, Buckinghamshire council's deputy leader and cabinet member for planning, said its council 'follows the planning process rigorously as determined by nationally set guidance and legislation' and that, as its decision is now subject to judicial review 'it is not appropriate for the Council to comment further'. After sewage spills on the McDonald's garden, Anglian Water staff are dispatched with soil, grass seed and disinfectant to clear the damage – a process that can take days but will likely seem small fry to the company in the event of a new development. If he does end up with 153 new neighbours, Ian predicts: 'They're in trouble.'
BBC News
27-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Battle begins over new homes approved in historic village without sewage capacity
On the edge of Buckingham in southern England, the quiet and leafy village of Maids Moreton, dotted with thatched cottages, is at the heart of a is a plan - already granted permission - to add 153 new homes to the existing community of 350 houses, a medieval church and a the local sewage works has been over capacity for years, and there is no sign of it being upgraded soon.A choice is looming over what to do if the planned new homes are built. Leave them standing empty, waiting for upgrades to the wastewater treatment system before they are connected?Or connect them anyway and let people move in - contributing towards Buckinghamshire Council's target for new homes, but increasing the sewage pollution of the nearby river, the Great Ouse?"You wouldn't dream of building a house that you couldn't connect to electricity, or that was never going to connect to a road. But for some reason we're building houses that have nowhere to treat the sewage," says Kate Pryke, one of the local residents campaigning to prevent the development being Moreton's dilemma is an increasingly common one across England - as ageing sewage works, water industry under-investment and chronic pollution in many areas appear to threaten the government's ambitious plans to build 1.5 million homes this 30 miles away in Oxford, concerns over sewage capacity led to the Environment Agency objecting to all new development, placing up to 18,000 new homes in limbo. It led a group of developers, including some of Oxford University's colleges, to describe the city as "uninvestable". Overdue upgrades to Oxford Sewage Treatment Works have now been agreed allowing new homes to be built and occupied from 2027."We think the problem is rife across England and Wales," says Justin Neal, solicitor at Wildfish, an environmental charity that campaigns against river charity has been granted permission for a judicial review at the High Court, challenging Buckinghamshire Council's decision to grant planning permission for the Maids Moreton development. It says the case goes to the heart of the gap between plans for new housing and the capacity of the existing sewage infrastructure. The area is "a good example of where too many houses have been put in", and as a result the local sewage works - Buckingham Water Recycling Centre - "won't be able to deal with all the sewage that's going to it," says Mr says sewage from the Maids Moreton development would likely end up being discharged into the Great Ouse as a result, "a river which is already suffering from pollution"."We hope that people start listening, particularly in government, and the ministers start thinking, 'Well, maybe there is a way around this.' And it's to put more pressure on water companies to make sure that they have capacity."The water companies - along with the regulator Ofwat and the Environment Agency - decide when and where sewerage investment will be made. While this should take account of future housing need, there is no way for a local council or developer to influence investment decisions directly - or even pay for the extra Maids Moreton, Anglian Water stated in planning documents 10 years ago that Buckingham Water Recycling Centre did not have any capacity for new the site was flagged as being at capacity in 2015, planning permission has been granted for about 1,500 homes in and around Buckingham, hundreds of which have already been built and connected to the over-capacity treatment works. Sewage pollution is listed by the Environment Agency as one of the reasons the Great Ouse is failing to achieve "good ecological status". Last year the treatment works released sewage into the river for a total of 2,001 hours - the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half months non-stop - although Anglian Water claims this is not related to site capacity."They don't even have the money to upgrade it for the housing that's here. The idea that one day it will be upgraded to cope with all the growth is just a pipe dream," says Mrs wasn't supposed to be this way. Environmental policies in the area's local plan to protect rivers led to a planning condition that developers have to prove that "adequate capacity is available or can be provided" at wastewater treatment in the Maids Moreton case, no capacity upgrades have been carried out and there are none currently planned. There was provisional funding to upgrade the capacity of the works between 2020-25 but it was reallocated to priority schemes elsewhere in the region."We are currently reviewing and prioritising our growth portfolio for delivery over the next five years," Anglian Water said, but the company did not respond to questions about whether the upgrades to Buckingham sewage works would take place before to meet the planning condition about sewage capacity, the developer - David Wilson Homes South Midlands, part of the UK's largest housebuilder Barratt Redrow - applied to amend it so construction could start and the council agreed."Under pressure from the developer, they've watered this down, and it means that these houses can now be built without paying attention to whether or not the sewage works has capacity," says Mr Neal from Wildfish."What we need is proper joined-up thinking where there should be no development unless there is capacity." Buckinghamshire Council's cabinet member for planning Peter Strachan said the local authority "follows the planning process rigorously" and it has made the new homes subject to "a condition preventing any part of the development from being occupied unless and until confirmation has been provided to the council that wastewater upgrades have been completed". He added "it is not appropriate for the council to comment further" because of the legal clauses like the one imposed by the council are known as "Grampian conditions", after a 1984 court case, and are often used when work is required that is beyond the developer's control. They are increasingly common as local authorities grapple with the challenge of building new homes in areas where the sewage works are at once homes with planning permission are built, water companies are obliged to connect them to the sewage network, regardless of its capacity."The very idea that they are going to sit empty for months, possibly years without being occupied because there's a condition that hasn't been met is an utter nonsense," says Kate Pryke. "And in any event the council will have no interest in enforcing that condition."Neither the council nor the developer answered the BBC's questions about when they expect Buckingham sewage works to be upgraded and how long they would be prepared for the newly built houses to remain the developer said it would "ensure a programme of any wastewater upgrades required to support the development has been agreed with Anglian Water". On the development site itself, the company said there will be "at least a 10% uplift in biodiversity" with the installation of "bat and bird boxes and hedgehog highways". The BBC also asked the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government what should happen in areas where new homes are needed but where there is no available sewage capacity in the foreseeable future - and also whether Buckinghamshire Council had been right to grant planning permission in Maids Moreton.A government spokesperson said: "Councils must consider sewerage capacity as part of their housebuilding plans and, through our Independent Water Commission, we will clean up our waterways by making sure planning for development and water infrastructure works more efficiently."The judicial review could take place later this year. If the charity is successful it could stop the Maids Moreton development going ahead and place future housebuilding in the area in comes at a time when the government says it is "turbocharging growth" and overhauling the planning system - with Chancellor Rachel Reeves promising to reduce "environmental requirements placed on developers when they pay into the nature restoration fund… so they can focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about bats and newts".Mr Neal says the charity's legal case, however, is not about "newt-hugging" or "people caring for fish more than they do for people who are homeless" - but about development being held back by the lack of capacity in sewage works. "The solution is not to take away the laws that give the environment protection, but to build better sewage works that actually do their job properly."
