The Welsh Government has announced a new action plan to tackle phosphorus pollution.

The ‘Relieving Pressures on SAC River Catchments to Support Delivery of Affordable Housing Action Plan’ has several key themes:

• The need for a joined-up approach and the need for fit for purpose governance and oversight arrangements to support decision making in failing Special Areas of Conservation rivers.
• The need to use natural solutions more effectively in order to deliver multiple benefits.
• The need to work constructively with the agriculture sector to find solutions to reduce and address excess nutrients in the soil and SAC rivers of Wales.
• Delivering short term solutions to address current planning constraints.
• Development of a unified nutrient calculator to directly aid planning decisions on nutrient neutrality which will have the ability to take account of catchment-level data, local features and needs.
• Provide clarity to stakeholders on the suitability of potential mitigation actions and interventions to reduce pollution.
• A unified approach to catchment consenting in failing SAC rivers.
• Increasing understanding of practical measures within catchments which could be provided by nutrient trading.
• The plan emerged from the March multi-stakeholder River Pollution Summit

Read more here.