REPORT ON FOUL WATER SEWERAGE & WASTEWATER TREATMENT FOR DEVELOPMENTS AT

Introduction

This report, prepared at the request of North Fambridge Parish Council, considers the foul water sewerage and wastewater treatment aspects of applications to District Council for approval of reserved matters for two developments at North Fambridge. Outline planning consent for these was granted in 2016.

Site A B Brief Description Up To 75 market and affordable dwellings, A Up to 30 dwellings Village Centre of up to 1,000 sq m of flexible commercial and community floorspace and a 1.8Ha Village Green and Public Open Space.

To avoid confusion the identification letters (A) and (B) are consistent with the titles used in Drainage Statements produced on behalf of the developer, even though the initial application for Site (B) preceded that for Site (A).

The planning history has been complex, including in regard to Site (B) an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate in relation to Maldon DC's original decision, and is summarised in the Appendix. For ease of reference the following table lists the relevant application numbers for the planning applications:

Site A Site B Original application OUT/MAL/14/00186 OUT/MAL/13/00473 Resubmitted application OUT/MAL/14/01016 OUT/MAL/14/01018 Reserved Matters application RES/MAL/17/00776 RES/MAL/17/00766 Compliance with conditions 17/05154/DET 17/05142/DET application

At present foul water sewage is pumped via a rising main to Latchingdon Water Recycling Centre for treatment with a discharge ultimately into the Blackwater Estuary.

Joint Position Statement

There was concern over the adequacy of drainage infrastructure to cope with development at North Fambridge. This resulted in a Joint Position Statement prepared by Anglian Water, the Environment Agency and County Council being issued in January 2014 to assist Council in their decision making on development in North Fambridge. As far as my report is concerned the relevant sections of the statement are the capacity of the foul water sewerage network and the availability of sewage treatment facilities.

The statement confirmed that the village is served by a foul only sewerage network with two pumping stations located at The Avenue and Franklin Road. The statement said that the current network did not have the capacity to accept the further growth indicated, presumably referring to the 75 units included in the Local Development Plan, but possibly referring the total of 105 units from the two current applications plus a further 37 units from another application that might have gone to appeal at that time. It did not unfortunately say how much, if any, growth below that value could be accommodated. The Position Statement made it clear that both Anglian Water, as operator, and the Environment Agency, as the body responsible for issuing the discharge consent from that Centre, considered that the Latchingdon Water Recycling Centre was already operating at flow capacity. There was a recognition within the statement that, following a review, the consented dry weather flow needed to be increased but it was specifically stated that this was to take account of seasonal variation and that any further increase in loading would be unlikely to be looked on favourably if it led to increased nutrient levels in the Blackwater estuary. Hence process improvements would be required at Latchingdon WRC if it had to accommodate the planned growth. As a preferred alternative it was identified that South Woodham Ferrers WRC had sufficient capacity. Moreover the cost of providing a new sewerage system to pump the foul sewage to the latter location was estimated to be less than that of enhancing the system to Latchingdon, but still would be of the order of £2 million.

Conditions placed on the Outline Permissions in Respect of Foul Water

The outline permissions granted contained the following conditions with respect to collection and treatment of foul water:

Site A 31. No development shall commence until a detailed wastewater strategy has been submitted to and approved in writing by the local planning authority. The development shall be carried out in complete accordance with the approved details and retained as such thereafter. 32. Pursuant to condition 31 above, no dwelling hereby approved, or approved as part of the reserved matters referred to in condition 1 of this permission, shall be occupied until the wastewater strategy has been carried out in complete accordance with the approved details. 33. No development shall commence until a foul water strategy has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. The development shall be carried out in complete accordance with the approved details and retained as such thereafter 34. Pursuant to condition 33, no dwelling hereby approved, or approved as part of the reserved matters referred to in condition 1 of this permission, shall be occupied until the foul water strategy has been carried out in complete accordance with the approved details. Site B 16. No development shall commence until a foul water strategy has been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. The development shall be carried out in complete accordance with the approved details and retained as such thereafter. 17. Pursuant to condition 16, no dwelling hereby approved, or approved as part of the reserved matters referred to in condition 1 of this permission, shall be occupied until the foul water strategy has been carried out in complete accordance with the approved details.

It can be seen that for both sites the conditions reflect the concerns over the ability of the foul water sewerage system to cope with additional load. However only the Site A condition gives consideration to the capacity of the Water Recycling Centre.

Consideration of wastewater elements of application for Approval of Reserved Matters

General

The applicants have submitted Drainage Statements produced by their consultants RSK for both sites. As Appendix B to both these they have included the 2014 Joint Position Statement. RSK state that the Joint Position Statement was produced in response to a consultation from Maldon DC concerning the availability of infrastructure capacity in the Latchingdon Waste Water Treatment Works catchment to serve 800 new homes. However nowhere within the Joint Statement is such a figure mentioned as the context for its production. The only figures that are mentioned are the allocation of 75 units in the Local Plan (represented by Site A), the 30 units at Site B and another refused application for 37 units. The figure of 800 homes quoted by RSK as the context for the production of the Joint Position Statement gives the incorrect impression that the present applications are minor compared to the limited capacity of the sewerage and waste water treatment facilities.

Foul Water Sewerage

The RSK reports includes as their Appendix C an Anglian Water Development Impact Assessment dated 16th December 2015, but misleadingly referred to by RSK as being from January 2015. The Development Impact Report itself states that It should be read in conjunction with the pre-planning report dated 15 January 2015. Unfortunately a copy of that pre-planning report does not seem to have been submitted to Maldon DC.

The Development Impact Report includes a spreadsheet calculation of the additional Dry Weather Flow anticipated from the residential dwellings in the two proposed developments. I note that a value of 131 litres/head/day has been used. This seems a little on the low side: the average UK water consumption is 150 litres/head/day and for billing purposes Anglian Water assume 90% of this is returned to the sewer. This would give a slightly higher value of 135 litres/head/day input to the sewer. I also see that no allowance has been made for flows from the commercial and community development within Site A.

The Development Impact Report concludes that without mitigating measures the combined effects of the developments would result in increased foul water flood risk downstream of the proposed connection points. The solution proposed by Anglian Water, and by implication now forming part of the Applicant's submission, is to allow the Site B properties to connect by gravity to the sewerage system, to increase storage capacity at the existing The Avenue Pumping Station by 33 cubic metres and provide 68 cubic metres of storage within Site A (i.e. a total additional storage of 102 cubic metres) An on-site pumping station would be situated within Site A with real time control to prevent its operation when there is excessive build up at The Avenue Pumping Station. Using the Anglian Water flow figures, the anticipated daily output of foul water from the two sites would be 40 cubic metres under average conditions and 77 cubic metres if peak flow conditions were maintained. From this it would appear that, once all the storage had been provided, the proposal could provide storage for at least a day's input from the two sites.

Anglian Water's calculations in the Development Impact Report assume that the two developments take place at the same time. They do however state that If the southern site [Site B] starts first then the full 30 dwellings may be connected prior to mitigation, on the proviso that the northern site will still be going ahead at the same time. However the full mitigation will need to be in place prior to any connections from the northern site being made. They have not given any justification for the first italicised sentence and I consider that sufficient mitigation measures must be in place before any of the Site B properties are occupied. An appropriate way of achieving this would be to require the increased storage at The Avenue Pumping Station to be in place prior to occupation of the Site B properties. Although I am not an expert in such matters, I believe that normal planning procedures would require the two applications to be considered separately. However since the applicants have themselves chosen to link the two developments by submitting Anglian Water's Development Plan in its entirety for both, I believe it is also legitimate for the Planning Authority to link requirements for phasing of the works. Waste Water Treatment

Condition 31 for Site A requires the submission of a detailed wastewater treatment strategy. RSK address this in their report with the following words" Anglian Water also advised that some improvement works have already been implemented at the Latchingdon Works, however further works are planned. These improvements will ensure that the quality of treated effluent which is to discharged to the local watercourse from the works will comply with the terms of their Environment Agency licence. By no stretch of the imagination can these two sentences amount to the detailed wastewater strategy required by Condition 31. Furthermore the Anglian Water Development Impact Assessment made no reference to the wastewater treatment aspects of the applications. The Joint Position Statement made clear that Any further increase in the fouls treated at Latchingdon WRC is unlikely to be looked upon favourably in order to minimise nutrient loads to the Blackwater Estuary. Without the required detailed strategy it is not possible for the Planning Authority to ascertain whether any of the actual or promised improvement works at Latchingdon have justified a change in that position and hence the approval required under Condition 31 cannot be legitimately given. I would also point out that there has already been a case elsewhere in the region where poor communication within Anglian Water has led to misinformation being given on the provision of infrastructure for new development.1

Peter Wynn C.Eng., MICE, F.CIWEM 7th October 2017

27 Wordsworth Avenue, Maldon, Essex, CM9 6BY

1 see http://planning.breckland.gov.uk/OcellaWeb/viewDocument?file=dv_pl_files%5C3PL_2015_1045_O%5C3PL_ 2015_1045_O-NC_14.pdf&module=pland http://www.neilstarling.com/index.php/the-rob-morris-letter Appendix: Planning History

In 2013/14 applications for outline permission permission to develop the two sites. In the case of Site (B) for which application was made first, Anglian Water indicated that there was sufficient capacity both within the foul water sewerage network and at the Latchingdon WRC. However the Environment Agency cast doubt on the capacity of the WRC indicating that the Anglian Water response may have referred to its process capacity rather than its permitted capacity and suggested that Conditions should include " The development hereby permitted shall not be commenced until such time as a scheme to dispose of foul water has been submitted to, and approved in writing by, the local planning authority. The scheme shall be implemented as approved. The development should not be occupied until effective wastewater treatment capacity for the development is in place and operational".

Officers of Maldon DC recommended approval of the application with conditions including this one suggested by the Environment Agency. The officers' report did not however draw attention to the Environment Agency's concerns over process capacity v permitted capacity. The area Planning Committee in early December 2013 deferred making a decision until clarification was received from Anglian Water. In response in early January 2014 Anglian Water revised their position to being that the development would led to an unacceptable risk of flooding downstream and that the Latchingdon WRC did not currently have capacity. Officers again recommended approval of the application.

Taking the Anglian Water response, and presumably the Joint Position Statement into account, permission for both developments was refused by the area Planning Committee inter alia on grounds of inadequate capacity both within the foul sewerage network and at the waste water recycling facility at Latchingdon. The relevant parts of the decision letters are shown below.

Site A The proposed development would trigger a requirement for foul and surface (11/8/14) water infrastructure improvement to achieve a suitable capacity and connection to the mains sewage network. As a result of the capacity restrictions identified by the statutory sewage undertaker for this area it is clear that significant infrastructure costs are associated with the works required to upgrade the existing sewage and surface water infrastructure / capacity in order to facilitate this development. The applicant has not submitted sufficient information to demonstrate that this development is both viable and deliverable in context of the reasonable requirements of the statutory sewage undertaker. In the absence of a viability and delivery assessment it is considered that the development cannot be accurately measured against the provisions contained within the National Planning Policy Framework, together with saved policy CON5 of the adopted Maldon District Replacement Local Plan, emerging policy I1 of the submitted Maldon District Local Development Plan and the Council's Infrastructure Delivery Plan. Site B The proposed development would trigger a requirement for foul water (11/2/14) infrastructure improvement to achieve a suitable capacity and connection to the mains sewage network. As a result of the capacity restrictions identified by the statutory sewage undertaker for this area it is clear that significant infrastructure costs are associated with the works required to upgrade the existing sewage infrastructure / capacity in order to facilitate this development. The applicant has not submitted sufficient information to demonstrate that this development is both viable and deliverable in context of the reasonable requirements of the statutory sewage undertaker. In the absence of a viability and delivery assessment it is considered that the development cannot be accurately measured against the provisions contained within the National Planning Policy Framework, together with saved policy CON5 of the adopted Maldon District Replacement Local Plan, emerging policy I1 of the Maldon District PreSubmission Local Development Plan and the Council's Infrastructure Delivery Plan.

The developer appealed to the Planning Inspectorate in respect of the decision for Area (B). With regard to the foul sewerage aspects, the appellants argued that viability was not relevant to the consideration of an application for outline permission. The Inspector said that the viability was a matter for the appellant to decide. He appears to go on to say that since the same constraints would apply to Maldon DC's Local Plan, which identified the village as a viable location for 75 dwellings, the authority could not say that the individual application was not viable. He stated that the required infrastructure could be secured before development by a suitably worded condition [He may have had in mind something along the lines of the suggestion of the Environment Agency or the subsequent January 2014 suggestion of Anglian Water which were included in Officer's reports]. The Inspector dismissed the appeal on grounds not related to the drainage issue, but awarded costs to the appellants.

Before the Inspector's report was issued, new applications for each site were submitted. For both sites A and B Anglian Water stated that upgrades to the foul sewerage network would be required and that the Latchingdon WRC did not have capacity to accept the flows. It pointed out that there was capacity at South Woodham Ferrers WRC. The company recommended that for both sites no development should commence until acceptable strategies for foul water sewerage and wastewater treatment were approved. With regard to Site B the Environment Agency again drew attention to the confusion between process and permitted capacities at Latchingdon WRC. With regard to Site A the Environment Agency reiterated their position expressed in the previous Joint Position Statement, i.e. that the Latchingdon WRC was operating at volumetric capacity and that they were concerned on the effects of any additional nutrient loading to the Blackwater Estuary.

In Maldon DC Officer report on the revised application for Site B (written before formal responses fron Anglian Water and the Environment Agency had been received) it was stated " The accepted legal stance is that that a Local Planning Authority (LPA) can make planning permission conditional upon there being in place adequate sewerage facilities to cater for the requirements of the development without ecological damage. Therefore, if the developer indicates that he intends to deal with problem of sewerage by connecting to a public sewer, the LPA can make planning permission conditional upon the sewerage authority first taking any steps necessary to ensure that the public sewer will be able to cope with the increased load. Thus, the LPA can prevent a developer from overloading a sewerage system before the Undertaker has taken steps to upgrade the system to cope with the additional load."

Both applications were given approval by Maldon DC with conditions, including a number related to collection and treatment of waste water. The applicant's response to these conditions is the subject of the current report.