Mid Suffolk’s Green and Liberal Democrat councillors have welcomed unanimous support for their motion calling for more information and a strong focus on how planning approvals affect sewage discharges into the district’s rivers.
Group leader Andy Mellen said, “The public will be reassured to know that councillors and planning staff recognise and share the widespread concern about lack of infrastructure and these polluting discharges which show no sign of diminishing. As councillors and planning committee members we are deeply frustrated that lack of sewage capacity, whether pipes or processing, cannot be used to withhold permission for more development. This is a Government rule and not something we are able to control. We must leverage what little power we have, to do more to protect and enhance the natural world as well everyone who uses our waterways for recreation.”
TO CONSIDER THE MOTION ON NOTICE RECEIVED FROM COUNCILLOR MELLEN
Residents of our district are rightly concerned about water quality and the impact of regular wastewater discharges, which can include untreated sewage, into our local rivers and the impact of this on wildlife and on human health.
As more new homes are built and the district’s population rises, the release of sewage into rivers is no longer an emergency-only situation occurring as a result of severe storms, but in some locations has become a regular occurrence even in moderate rainfall. Here is a summary of combined storm overflow discharges at four sites across the district in 2021:
| Treatment Site | Number of discharge events | Total discharge hours |
| Stonham Aspal | 108 | 1,898 |
| Elmswell | 71 | 698 |
| Badwell Ash | 68 | 1,074 |
| Horham | 51 | 1,162 |
Source: The Rivers Trust (analysis of Anglian Water data)
Discharges of sewage can alter the delicate nutrient balance of streams and rivers, causing negative impacts on wildlife and the whole ecosystem. Wild swimmers are known to bathe at several sites in Mid-Suffolk and in streams and rivers which flow out of the district, including the Blackbourne, the Gipping and the Waveney, and discharges upstream heighten the risk of illness in river users.
Anglian Water is a statutory consultee to major planning applications, but its response relates to whether it has network capacity, rather than whether it has treatment capacity. We believe Anglian Water needs to be encouraged to consider its sewage treatment capacity in the light of rising numbers of homes and businesses in the district.
This Council therefore resolves to:
1. Ask the chair of the scrutiny committee to invite senior officers of Anglian Water plus senior representatives from the relevant internal Drainage Boards, Natural England and the Environment Agency to attend a meeting to answer questions on the current levels of untreated sewage discharges to waters in Mid Suffolk.
2. Ensure that in gathering evidence for future iterations of the local plan the council consider the cumulative impact of sewage when deciding the overall level of housing and other development. The council notes that decisions about allocations in the Joint Local Plan will be guided by an updated Water Cycle Study. This should take into account the impact of combined sewer overflow discharges on watercourses and the capacity of waste water treatment works to process anticipated new foul drainage.
3. Ask Anglian Water, from this date onwards, in its planning consultation responses for major development, to identify which treatment works will be managing the sewage and what their capacity is to treat additional volumes of effluent; whether it has the information available to assess the impact on the number or duration of sewage discharges into local rivers, and if it does have this information to share it (noting that this can only be requested not required).
4. Request that planning officers, from now onwards, include in all reports relating to major development a specific section on the impacton watercourses, including the potential for the development to result in untreated sewage outflow into watercourses (i.e. cumulative impact), ... view the full agenda text for item 10b