Housebuilders are having to spend up to £25,000 per home on mitigation schemes in order to secure planning permissions in parts of the country affected by the ongoing nutrient neutrality crisis.

According to evidence given to a House of Lords committee yesterday by James Stevens, director of cities at housebuilder trade body the HBF, his member companies have had to spend anything between £5,000 and £25,000 in order to privately procure works to mitigate potential nutrient pollution from new housing development.

Stevens also used the session to accuse the government’s system of environmental regulation of a “breakdown”, which he said had allowed the problem of water pollution to continue and worsen until it reached the point at which housebuilders had been forced to stop building.

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