Almost 100 planning applications in Ceredigion are on hold due to pollution in the River Teifi.  

Ceredigion County Council figures obtained by the Cambrian News show the extent of the hold up in the county’s planning department – and the headache it is causing for authority bosses. 

They are now considering a phosphate pollution-busting credit scheme which could enable developers and their applications to make progress in return for implementing measures to bring down levels of the harmful chemical in the river.  

The idea is that wetlands and other nature-based ways of mitigating phosphates – present in sewage and agricultural run-off – would be created.  

Those wetlands would then generate credits to be sold to developers as a means of mitigating the phosphate impact of new properties in river catchment areas designated as special areas of conservation (SAC). 

As the Cambrian News reported, Ceredigion County Council has been criticised for not committing to pollution reduction targets as part of a severely delayed Teifi conservation project launched in October 2021. 

In Carmarthenshire, 79 applications for 138 new homes are being held up due to pollution of the Teifi.  

The credit scheme is a new plan put forward by Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion councils who joined together in 2021 to take action to improve the health of the Teifi. 

Carmarthenshire county councillors on the place, sustainability and climate change committee were told during a meeting that credit trading would be an alternative to developers coming up with their own phosphate mitigation measures. 

Gail Pearce-Taylor works with the three councils as the board manager for the joint Nutrient Management Programme and she said sites which flooded regularly were not suitable for new wetlands because the phosphate they stored would then be released into rivers. 

A Ceredigion County Council spokesperson said: “Whilst the impact of development on Special Areas of Conservation has always been a material consideration when considering planning application, there was a significant change in guidance from (environmental regulator) Natural Resources Wales (NRW) in January 2021.  

“Guidance was published last year and decisions are now being issued. The guidance has impacted on around 100 planning application since 2021. 

“In respect of how the council will help solve the problem of applications being on hold, the work Mrs Gail Pearce-Taylor refers to in relation to a wetland feasibility study, a nutrient credit trading scheme feasibility study and other associated evidence base programmes is being jointly commissioned across the three catchments and is in development for Ceredigion alongside Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.  

“A nutrient calculator for the Teifi will be available shortly. 

“In terms of the number of homes that the approximately 100 applications refers to, it is not possible to give an exact planning application number or associated housing figure as applications are submitted regularly and the council are determining them in accordance with the NRW guidance - thus the number ‘stuck’ is highly variable.” 

The council has created a calculator for developers to quantify how much phosphate their scheme would generate. The committee heard that the calculator has been accepted by the Welsh Government and NRW and was being rolled out to the rest of Wales. 

Phosphate-stripping technology can be added to sewage treatment works which don’t have it, but Ms Pearce-Taylor said nature-based solutions – including tree buffers along rivers – conferred other benefits like new habitats and carbon storage. 

Ms Pearce-Taylor said during the meeting at Carmarthenshire County Council that this was a ‘no-brainer’, and that Welsh Water has put forward a huge investment programme to update its infrastructure. But she said the bigger the programme, the more costs would increase for consumers. 

She said the public could help in terms of what they flushed down the toilet. 

“An awful lot of what ends up in rivers should not be there in the first place,” she said.