COMMENT: House building and water neutrality

But this does create the need to build additional houses and that’s what we in the Houses for Homes Consortium do. Some of the houses built are designed for first time buyers, others are there to enable owners to move up the ladder.

Without this continued supply of additional houses two things happen. The housing market stagnates as people can’t find somewhere to buy and people trying to enter the market find prices rise quicker than their ability to find a deposit for the mortgage.

We are actually part of the planning process. Government and Local Councils decide how many new houses are needed for up to ten years in the future. The developers and builders finish the job, building the houses and keep the system moving.

That was until September 2021 when Natural England decided that houses must not increase the amount of water being used in North Sussex. With no consultation or agreed process, we were told that unless we could show that our houses would not add to the amount of water being used houses could not be built -.This has produced a complete stop to the planning process and as you can imagine - complete chaos

They have insisted on the idea of ‘water neutrality’ First off we have to install water saving devices in our new homes and then we find sufficient existing householders who would volunteer to let us fit the same devices in their existing homes. A report to a House of Lords Committee showed that it took retro fitting to upto 27 existing houses to make room for 1 new home.

We said from the start it wouldn’t work. There just aren’t enough existing houses to go round. In the end it seems the only way forward is for the Councils to use existing social housing where the tenants probably can’t object and create things called water credits.

So if you can find enough existing houses to make space for one new house you have created a water credit. But as I say - there aren’t enough existing houses. So they have concocted another idea. Southern Water will supply the water credits, possibly by using some water they already have. Apparently they work out how much is required for each water credit, then they sell it to the Local Council who in turn can sell it to us. Hey presto problem solved. But is it ?

For a start, the water they have found must or should already be part of the water company’s regulated output .Then we have to pay for this water credit - in addition to all the charges we already pay .

Second why should we have to pay extra for water they already have. This is hypothecation and for the council to decide who may get the credits makes a mockery or the Planning System

Whatever they say, they are not short of water. They survived, we survived, the really dry year of 2022 without even the well known hose pipe ban.- There is plenty of Water- This is what should be used wisely .