COUNCILLORS have called for restrictions on new building beside a River Wye tributary to be lifted “as soon as possible” – claiming the so-called ‘moratorium’ makes no difference to water quality.

Little development can take place in the extensive catchment of the protected but degraded River Lugg in Herefordshire, unless this can be shown to not increase water pollution – a rule which has held up building hundreds of homes and blocked millions in investment in the county since 2019, they say.

But the county council’s environment and sustainability scrutiny committee was told that the rule is likely to remain in place, given vastly greater unaddressed pollution from other sources.

Cllr Richard Thomas (Wormside, Con), a former farmer, said that “doing away with the moratorium tomorrow would not increase the phosphate in the Lugg by one per cent” and that government bodies the Environment Agency and Natural England “are being quite ridiculous” on the issue.

Llangarron county ward councillor Elissa Swinglehurst (Con), who lives in Welsh Newton, said: “There is no point at which housing can fix the river, given that over 80 per cent of pollution in it comes from farming.

The “millions of pounds” invested by Welsh Water to improve sewage outflows has also “been wiped out by the diffuse pollution share”, she added.

Andrew McRobb, director of local countryside charity CPRE, which is among groups measuring pollutants in waterways, said these “are massively over the targets”, by a factor of around 10, and that the problem “is still increasing”.

The council’s phosphate mitigation lead Elizabeth Duberley said its nutrient credit scheme based on developers supporting new wetlands at Luston, Tarrington and a third planned site, “has addressed almost all of the planning backlog” in the county.

But Cllr Robert Highfield (Castle, Con) claimed there would be “a wall of new building applications” if the moratorium were lifted.