Council agreement comes under fire for nitrate offsetting loophole

During a meeting of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (BDBC) cabinet on October 11, the council suggested that in order to meet its climate emergency target offsetting will need to be used to reach carbon neutrality.

Offsetting is defined as reductions in emissions in one place that can be used to compensate for emissions elsewhere. 

The cabinet declared a climate emergency in 2019 which included a target to be carbon neutral as an organisation by December 2025. 

SEE ALSO: Mitigating carbon emissions is necessary to reach climate target, councillor says

During a full council meeting held on Thursday, October 20 councillors discussed offsetting at a development in Ox Drove Meadow situated with Picket Piece in Andover. 

In a report to the council, it reads that Wates Developments, has identified a parcel of land within Basingstoke and Deane at Tidgrove Warren Farm, Overton, to provide nitrate mitigation for its development of 16 residential dwellings with associated access, parking, open space and landscaping in Picket Piece.

Borough councillor for Overton Colin Phillimore said: “I cannot support this, where does this offsetting end and how does this protect our environment? This is not safe and this idea of offsetting a bit of land into other areas is not safe.

“This cabinet of ours has rolled over and allowed this. If nothing else this offsetting should be in the same ward or else, we have county-wide, country-wide offsetting allowing developers to build wherever they want. I just cannot agree with it.”

The leader of the Basingstoke and Deane Independent group Cllr Paul Harvey took the same view.

He added: “If we are going to have carbon reductions targets in this authority and then we are going to declare a climate change emergency or an ecological emergency and then we are going to say but we can’t meet the targets so we are going to offset it by basically having somebody else take up that for us.

“Not all offsetting is offsetting, not all carbon reduction is carbon reduction some of it is a get out of jail card that enables developers and others to continue polluting and doing the very thing we said we do not need."

The former mayor Cllr Onnalee Cubitt called the idea "wholly inappropriate" to deal with commitments BDBC have made. 

Meanwhile, Cllr Graham Falconer said it is a practical solution.

He said: “Two or three or four years ago I could not get any planning application though because the nitrates strategy was a bit of a bag of nails and we got not get anything through.”

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Meanwhile, the leader of the council, who has previously spoken in its support, continued to fight the case.

Cllr Simon Bound said: “It is our view that everybody is correct to say offsetting has had a bad press. There is a reality though that says what to do we do when we have looked closely at how we do the right thing.

“We are very focused on using high-quality offsetting, that we are doing everything in our power to do everything with those offsetting initiatives for carbon removal offsetting and do everything we can to shift to long-lived storage for carbon.”

A Wates spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council have rejected the recommendation by its own officers to acknowledge feedback from Natural England to plant trees and help offset nitrates for the proposed homes at Picket Piece.

"Whilst the proposed housing is located in Test Valley Borough Council, this agreement would have established a new precedent for cross-boundary working between the two councils to help each other resolve complex environmental issues. The trees would add to the biodiversity of the area, and remove carbon from the air and nitrates from local water sources. We will continue to work with both councils to bring forward environmentally friendly solutions and much-needed housing."

The motion was rejected with 21 votes to 23.