A block on building thousands of new homes because of pollution in Cumbrian rivers is having a huge impact on the local economy and needs to be tackled urgently, one of Cumbria’s most successful businessmen has warned.
Genesis Homes managing director Nicky Gordon was interviewed for a Carlisle Youth Zone’s Business Breakfast event last week and said the crisis in housebuilding around Carlisle ‘scares the life out of me’.
The deadlock is because of sanctions over ‘nutrient neutrality’ which means there is a block across most of Cumbria on any new development such as new houses, many tourism developments and any commercial development which will result in increased discharge to watercourses.
The block affects the River Eden and its catchment which includes Carlisle, Brampton, Wetheral, Dalston, Penrith, Appleby and Kirkby Stephen. Also affected are the Derwent and Bassenthwaite, River Kent and Esthwaite Water.
A report into the delays commissioned by the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership found its impact had been huge, including:
- An annual reduction of around £647.2 million-worth of investment
- A missed opportunity to create or support around 7,420 jobs per year
- A loss of around £5.6 million in council tax revenues a year
- A loss of £6.1m in New Homes Bonus payments a year
- Failure to construct around 706 affordable homes.
Mr Gordon told the 50 businesses attending the Youth Zone event that the loss of ‘economic growth has been flabbergasting’.
He said: “I was pleased to see that housing was top of the agenda for the new Government, but nutrient neutrality scares the life out of me and is still to be mentioned.
“Having been born in a council house I know that the stability of a home and after that the right to buy promoted aspiration and provides opportunities and the lack of that provision locally will have all kinds of impacts for Carlisle.
“It will hit aspirations and lead to lots of knock-on effects including social care and mental health issues. I expect the Youth Zone by example will see an increased demand for its services.
“It all stems from the failure to tackle nutrient neutrality.
“Normally it is said that the polluter should pay, but in this situation house builders are not the polluter, but we are paying the price for lack of regulation in the real polluters.
“There has been a failure of the water companies, but we also have to recognise that farming is responsible for the majority of that runoff into rivers and needs to be regulated harder.
“House building in Carlisle has been decimated because of this.”
Mr Gordon also announced that Genesis had joined the list of 150 local businesses that are patrons of Carlisle Youth Zone, collectively providing a third of its funding.
David Jane, head of partnerships and development at Carlisle Youth Zone, said: “We’re delighted that Genesis Homes is joining our network of patrons and grateful to Nicky for sharing his insights with local businesses at our event.
“He really highlighted how the issues impacting on the local housing market are important to us all and will ultimately affect Carlisle’s young people. It was very thought-provoking session.”
The business breakfast was sponsored by business law firm Knights and supported by Intro PR.
