Transcript

page numbers from the published agenda pack to assist all present in finding the appropriate information. Just in respect of housekeeping, there is no expected firearm, but should this happen, please follow the Democratic Service colleagues and they will lead the way out to the car park at the rear of the building. Now, before I move on to the next item, a couple of things I'd like to say. First of all, I'd like to welcome Autumn, who's shadowing Councillor Hobbs. She's on work experience, I believe from Wells Blue School. Welcome to the meeting. You'll realise how exciting it is being a Councillor and dealing with these issues. It's all cut and thrust and I hope you get a lot out of it. Sorry, she wasn't made to bicycle here by Edrick. Did you have to come in on tandem? All right, good. Marvellous. Right, there's a couple of other things. One thing I'd say, I don't think I'm out of place saying this. Steph has worked for this committee for, I think, since it began and she is moving on within the Council. So this will be her last meeting. Glad that she's still with us, but not sadly missing it from the committee. And I'd like to extend my thanks to her and I'm sure on your behalf for the work she's done. We've had a request, I think a very appropriate one from Councillor Bradford, who's online, given the D-Day commemorations yesterday and today, that we should really stand for a minute's silence in respect. So I'd like you to join me in that from now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Right, we have apologies for absence. Jamie, please. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, committee. We have received apologies from Councillor Boyden, for whom Councillor Ashton is substituting. Apologies from Councillor Kravis, for whom Councillor Rigby is substituting. Apologies from Councillor Reid, for whom Councillor Lovell is substituting. And we have also received apologies from Councillor Power. Councillors Bradford, Mansell and Orsler are online. Thank you very much. I'm aware that I do want to give you my personal thanks, those of you that are appearing in the room, and those online, for the rearrangement of this meeting and coming to Shepton. My request, not so much come to Shepton, I think that came from the officers, but my request that it didn't clash with a meeting that happens later today and which is very important to many of us as well. So thank you very much for coming. I'm sort of smugly inclined to say, well, it takes me half an hour to get here, but it's an absolute joy to only have to spend that amount of time on the road. So I do sympathise with those of you that have come from somewhat further distances. Declarations of interest. Do we have any declarations of interest other than those that we normally would expect? No, thank you. Minutes of the previous meetings. Now we have to approve the minutes of the previous meetings on 20th March. Have you got the, has anybody got the pages in front of them? Do we need to go through it page by page? Can I assume we've read it and we approve? OK, I'm taking that as a yes. So we're approving of that. I would say that also at this point that because of the meeting that's taking place this afternoon, I will cap this meeting if it goes on to half twelve. I'm hoping it won't. Minister of Public Question Time. OK, we have one member of the public register. Chair. Chair, sorry. Dave Mansell. Thank you. Perhaps I've made a mistake and there's lots of papers I'm looking at. I thought there were two sets of minutes and the minutes for the last meeting I did wish to raise something on. I don't think you mentioned those. I didn't hear. I only heard one set of minutes mentioned. You're right. In my determination to get on, Dave, there were minutes held on the meetings on the 20th of March and the 26th of April. Which one was it you wanted to comment on, Dave? Yeah, thank you. So this is page twenty nine. So I get my camera on as well. There we go. So page twenty nine. It's not a big thing, but I nevertheless I feel I should should mention it. It doesn't need 26 of April. This is the 26th of April meeting. OK. Yeah. The last one. Thank you. Quality. Thank you. So page twenty nine. I will just note that four and five are the wrong way round. So the one about land use strategy was actually the further recommendation sort of added as five. A bit more importantly, and I don't know whether we wish to correct the minutes, because I did listen back to the recording later on yesterday and it was a little bit difficult to fully follow. But nevertheless, so I say we don't have to correct the minutes, but I hope something could be recorded that to show that others did think that the one on the task and finish group may have been a bit fuller than what is shown here. So it's got reference to the task and finish group. Now, my recollection and looking back at the recording as well, actually, what was very significant to that one and was emphasised at the time that it was to look at restoring favourable conditions to the Somerset levels and moors. And that hasn't been included in the minutes. So but I can see how that one was a little bit difficult to follow from the the debate that it took. But I didn't. But I understood that as a key part of it. And somehow that well, and I don't think that ever got taken out from any of the discussion that followed. So if that can somehow be recorded that it was thought that's what I believed I was voting on, for instance. Thanks, Dave. I think that, Jamie, do you want to answer that one? I will do, Chair. Thank you. And thank you, Councillor Mansell. Like yourself, I've watched the recording of the last meeting several times. And I think this is probably a good reminder to members that when you are voting on recommendations and then amendments to those recommendations, it's quite important to be clear. Hence, within that recording, I ask for a repetition of what you are voting on and that the wording that is in the minutes and was in the summary of outcomes from the meeting is exactly what members voted on at that meeting. If there is a discussion prior to that, that won't be encapsulated in what you're actually voting on. And that's a good reminder for members to make sure that their wording that they are voting on is precise, because we can only capture the actual wording of what it is you vote on. And I'm not trying to be awkward here, Councillor Mansell, but that is the wording of what was voted on is exactly what is recorded in the minutes. Thanks, Jamie. I'll give you an opportunity to reply, David. Yeah, if I may. And I'm not disagreeing with what Jamie said. I do accept that. But I think there is a matter of interpretation here and maybe he's followed it more closely than me. But I did follow it quite closely because this was of particular concern to me. This amendment arose from Councillor Rigby, who made it very clear and emphasised that restoring Somerset levels and boards to favourable condition was one of the most important things that he was saying. Subsequently, officers commented, I suggested a small addition to it. I'm not coming back to that. And subsequently, Councillor Hobhouse made some suggestions, which I think the bit where the options came in. But I understood that Councillor Hobhouse was sort of adding to what Councillor Rigby said and Councillor Rigby accepted it as a change to the amendment. Now, there was a lack of clarity. I quite agree. But could it be recorded that my understanding, at least from my point of view, was that fifth, the number five, what should be number five, and they muddled the wrong way round. But the one on the task and finish group was about restoring, was a working group to look at what was needed to restore favourable conditions on the Somerset levels and more. To me, that is important. And I believed it was important at the time. But things did get muddled on that. I readily accept. Right. So I think we're OK with the change. You mentioned the changing the order of in your first comment, I think. Is there anybody objecting to us modifying that in the minutes? Nobody in the room is. So I'm taking that as read. And on the other issue, I think we have to accept your point. And if you accept your point without necessarily amending the minutes. I think if you'd like to write in more detail on that to me and to the officers and to the committee, at least we can absorb what you're saying at length. OK. Thank you. OK. Thank you very much for that. No more comments on minutes. No. Let's go to then now with Mr David all would like to make a statement which I believe will be answered later in the meeting. He'd like the statement read out on his behalf immediately before. Oh, I see. Before item seven. So we will come to that statement later. So we're deferring that until the item comes up. OK. We now move on to agenda item five, the work programme. And I'm inviting Jamie Jackson to present the forward plan and outcome tracker for your comments and questions. Thank you. Thank you, chair. Members will have both the work programme and the outcome tracker in front of them. Members will see that the next meeting is on the 25th of July. Sorry, my machine's just giving me the circle of doom with fairly full agenda already. And then our next meeting will be in early September. Very happy to take any further suggestions, although we would probably need to take something off the agenda if we were to add additional in chair. And members will also see the outcome tracker in front of them with some items highlighted in green. Those are effectively items that we consider have been completed and will then disappear off the outcome tracker before publication at the next meeting. So happy to take any questions or challenge. We can't display that outcome tracker on the screen, can we, Steph? Yeah, that would be great. Has everybody, has everybody got access to it? I can see, I can also see a hand up in the corner of the screen there, I don't know who it is. It's Councillor Mansell. Councillor Mansell, is that a legacy hand? No, sorry, sorry, I've just lost your, I see the screen's coming up on the screen. Yeah, OK. Yeah, no, sorry, I've got a couple of points to raise if I may. Go ahead. A minor one, but one nevertheless that I hope can be done. So this is recording the outcomes on each of these items. Now, some of them are marked as needing a summary being added in. I hope that summary will come back to us. It was mentioned that the green ones will be dropped off, but we actually haven't got all the information on the green ones recorded in the tracker yet. So for me, I would say I think we do need to see the outcome recorded and see how it's been noted. That's a minor one. More significantly, on page 16, the task and finish group on the energy plan. Can I ask a question and just on what's happening with that now, because we're not seeing what happens with it next. We made a series of recommendations there. At the moment it's marked needing summary. Now, what I believe should be happening is that our report with the recommendations should be going to executive. So can we be assured that this will be appearing on the forward plan of executive soon? And also importantly, 4.5 of the series of recommendations that we agreed on that report was actually concerning things to come back to climate and place scrutiny, as were the additional recommendations that we put in concerning the heat hierarchy and listed buildings. So on our forward plan, can we please start showing a report when that will be coming back to us with the addressing the recommendations we made? Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody like to reply to that? Is this for you, Mickey? Yeah, I guess so. We will take those on board and circulate an amended outcome tracker. Thank you very much. Henry, would you excuse me a minute? Sorry, Mr Chairman. On the agenda item, it has in blue Somerset Council forward plans. When I went there, there's nothing there. It's at the top in the number five page, sorry, four. But I click on the same forward link, it brings up all of the scrutiny forward work programmes, executive and full Council. Hit our scrutiny. OK, so it's a technical issue, but it can be accessed. Is that a fair comment? We're not missing anything from that. I can't keep my eye on everything going on here. So I'm relying on your support on that. Yes. OK, points taken. Thank you. Is there any reason why I can't move on from this work? I know we're scooting through it very quickly, but I'm also conscious I've got a speaker on the line who we did defer last time. Yes, Councillor Rigby. Thank you, Chair. I can't see the forward plans like anyone else. So did I hear correctly, though, when Councillor Mansell was speaking that there's to be further discussion about planning policy as relates to listed buildings and conservation areas and energy efficiency? Did I hear that right? Is that in the plan? Sounded like that to me without asking him to come in and re-explain. Jon? To share the forward plan on the screen. Dave, did you want to come in? You're on the screen. Yes, I think it is, as I tried to explain. When we approved that report with our recommendations and additions, the recommendations were to the executive and lead members. So you would expect that to be taken to the executive. And there was a section 4.5 of things that we were asking for information on to come back to us, and they were particularly related to planning. So they're clearly shown in the report. It's 4.5. So at some point, I hope fairly soon, there should be a report coming back to address the recommendations that we made, and it should be on our forward plan as we see on the screen and is in our agenda. But as Henry quite rightly says, it's not online. I've looked several times and never found it online. But it does exist because it's on our agenda. But clearly, yeah, it should be put up online, too. I hope that's clear. And it should be clear just by looking at the recommendations that we made, including the recommendations included in the task and finish group report, which is the 4.5 bits. So, you know, I'm obviously anxious to ensure we don't lose this and that the follow up as we were expecting occurs. Thank you, David. That's a very good point. Can I request, then, that that is updated, that the tracker is updated, and that we are sent the tracker and that we are able to refer to it in the next meeting, just to ensure that we're all happy with that update. I wouldn't propose spending a long time on it, but those amendments and additions do need to be ratified, I think, by this group. Yes, Councillor Rigby. Thank you, Chair. In that case, when will that issue next be discussed by this committee? I've got some interesting information on costs I'd like to feed into the discussion. I just want to know when I might need to be here. Thank you. I'm going to hand over to Jamie. I can't remember the time of the next meeting, but July the 25th. Sorry, Paul, did you, Paul Hickson, did you want to comment? I don't think you're on, actually. I was going to say that will give us an opportunity to liaise with the officers in the tracker from our Climate, Environment and State Sustainability team a little bit more so that we're kind of looking at the recommendations in here and coming back to you about that cross-service. I think it's probably a helpful thing to do. Thank you. I do appreciate that that particular meeting that we discussed was a very detailed, very long meeting and commend the officers for including most of that stuff. But we do have to get our minutes right. We do have to ensure that we are all happy with the outcomes of our discussions and how they reflect on that tracker. So thank you very much. Any further questions? No. In which case, I'm going to move on. We're now on. Yeah, I got it. Thank you. We're now on agenda item six and this this was held over from a previous meeting for which I will apologize in advance. It's a presentation from Lancaster University. I'm inviting Dr Shane Rothwell in a minute to give a presentation on the Somerset Catchment Phosphorus Project. He was due to give this at the 26th of April meeting and we were we overran quite considerably. To introduce this, however, in the room, we have Tim Stevenson, who I believe is from Wessex Water. Is that correct, Tim? Sorry, we met this morning for the first time. Thank you for coming, Tim. Well, thank you very much for inviting us along. So I'll briefly explain the background to Dr Rothwell's work that he's going to share the detail of with you in a moment. But just to explain the context of this, my role with Wessex Water is Catchment Partnerships and Delivery Manager. So I'm an agricultural advisor heading up the team of other agricultural advisors and catchment scientists working for Wessex Water addressing diffuse nutrient pollution around the Wessex region. That would be nitrate leaching into the groundwaters of Dorset and Wiltshire or phosphorus runoff into the surface waters of Somerset. I'm here today on behalf of the group of partners who have commissioned the research that Dr Rothwell is going to be updating us on. Those partners who have funded this work are the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Somerset Catchment Partnership and Wessex Water. And we've also had the support of the National Farmers Union with this and particularly involving farmers in the project. And so there was a stakeholder meeting where Lancaster University shared their initial results just over a year ago. And there will be another one upon the conclusion of the project later this year where farmers and various industry representatives attended the last one and will attend the next one. This work builds on other research that's already been done. For instance, by Plymouth University looking at what's happening to the phosphorus within the protected sites themselves. But a key point about this research is that it's looking at a whole catchment scale, not just the levels and moors themselves. It's about the whole tone, power, catchments and what happens within them that then affects the protected sites. So the Lancaster University team that have been involved are Dr Rothwell, who's online now, and his colleagues, Professor Paul Withers and Dr Kirsty Forber. And the reason they were approached to do this work is because they've done very similar projects in Northern Ireland and the River Wye catchment, which are also have phosphorus as a major water quality issue. And it was felt that this was an evidence gap that needed filling because a lot of work to tackle phosphorus in water looks at the stages where it is mobilised in the field and then runs off and then ways that it can be buffered. But this takes it back a step to look at the actual source of the phosphorus, where it's accumulating in excess and then what can be done about it, which is an essential stage. But more of that from Dr Rothwell. And then the work will have taken over two years by the time it concludes later this year. Stage one was a substance flow analysis to look at the flows of phosphorus into the catchment, within the catchment and then what was leaving the catchment, with the difference being what's accumulating. And there are some interesting scenarios that the university have come up with about how that could be changed and what the impact of that would be. And then the second stage that is currently ongoing is about quantifying how much legacy phosphorus there is in the catchment after more than a century of annual phosphorus surplus. And then most importantly, how that links to the actual water quality, because a kilo of phosphorus in the soil isn't the same as a kilo of phosphorus in the water and not all of it is going to leave that soil. So how does a particular surface of phosphorus in a given place lead to excess phosphorus in the water? So that's the background to this project. And I personally found it an absolutely fascinating project to be involved with. And it's been good that what's been learned in other very sensitive catchments like the Y in Northern Ireland is now being applied in Somerset. Thank you, Tim, for that background and the context for this discussion. So I'll now hand over to Shane Rothwell. Morning, Shane. Thank you very much for joining us online and over to you. Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you, Tim, for the introduction. I will share my screen with you quickly. There we go. So can everybody see that OK? Yes, thank you. OK, thank you. Yes, and thanks for the introduction, Tim. So I'm presenting the work that we've done in the Somerset catchment. I've got another meeting going on at the same time. So, yeah, I'm presenting this work on behalf of the team at Lancaster. So Kirsty is now Dr Ross and Paul with us. It's going to be, I guess, a bit of an overview. We've completed phase one, but the report isn't published, so we won't go into too much depth and detail. And then we're currently working on phase two. So I'll give you an update on where we are, where we are with phase two. So phase one work objectives, as Tim said, really what we do with the work we've been doing is we take a step back and we look at a system level approach. So classically, what people have tried to understand is what's happening at the field scale or the farm scale. We step back and we look at the full food system because it's the food system where the phosphorus is coming from. And we really believe that you need that fundamental understanding of the food system before you can actually have any meaningful change on or impacts on water quality. So our overall aim was to, in phase one, was to understand the food system input pressures into the Somerset levels and laws. And we've also done some work for the Dorset style catchment as well. So the specific objectives. So we're quantifying the food system P inputs, outputs and internal flows using approach called substance flow analysis or SFA. And then the SFA, we will link that to water quality, to P loads actually in the rivers and in the study catchments. With the SFA, we can then do some scenario analysis to look at the impacts of system change on water quality. And then, as Tim also mentioned, we held a stakeholder workshop. So this was our remit. So we did substance flow analysis for four catchments. So we did the Bruinax catchment, the parrot, the tone, and then what was determined to be the impact risk zone of the IRZ, which is outlined by the black here. So we produced four different models using this substance flow analysis approach. So just a brief description of what that is. It uses a mass balance approach. So if we can quantify the phosphorus that's contained in the materials that are entering the catchment. So that may be animal feed, it may be fertiliser, it may be in the food that people are eating. And we can quantify the phosphorus contained in the materials that are leaving the catchment. So that might be agricultural products, it may be manures, it may be foods. And we can also quantify the phosphorus in the materials that are moving around within the catchment because phosphorus can't be created or destroyed. In theory, if we have a good enough knowledge, the system must balance. And then once we've established our model, we can then apply a range of metrics that then start to describe the efficiency of the system, or we can even look at the surplus of the system as well. So I'm going to bring up the model now. It can look a little bit daunting, but I will explain it to you. So this is, I'm just going to show you one of the models. This is one for the impact risk zone. So the dotted line on the outside, this is the hydrological boundary of the impact risk zone. The squares here, we call these processes. These represent the major activities in the catchment that are relevant to the food system. So on the top left here, essentially this process contains all the livestock in the agricultural system. This box in the top right, this represents essentially the agricultural soil surface on all the agricultural fields in the catchment. Then we have really what is a black box process in the middle here that really links our agricultural system up here to the exports of agricultural products, but then also the human consumption and wastewater treatment down the bottom here. The arrows linking between the different processes are coming in and out of the catchment. They represent flows of phosphorus per annum. This is for 2021, and it's all in tons of elemental phosphorus per annum that's contained in all these different materials. And it's a Sankey style diagram, so the width of the arrow is proportional to the amount of phosphorus in that flow. So immediately when we look at this system, we can quite clearly see that this is quite an agricultural dominated catchment. If we look internally, by far the biggest flow of phosphorus within the IOSA catchment is in manure. There's about 2800 tonnes of manure moving around in the catchment per year. If we look at the phosphorus coming into the catchment, again, by far the biggest input into the catchment is contained within livestock feed. So somewhere around about 1800 tonnes of phosphorus contained in the livestock feed that's been imported into the catchment, much less so for fertiliser. And then being a significant agricultural producing area, as you would expect, there's quite a large export of agricultural products. This process here, this is this is really what's I guess what's interesting. So this is our agricultural soil surface and we've got all our inputs going into our agricultural soil surface, we've got our fertilisers, we've got our manures and we have some biosolids as well going into the agricultural system from wastewater treatment. And then we've got some losses to water there. And then we've got our offtakes, we've got our offtakes in grass that's either been cut for silage or been grazed by the livestock and/or taken off in crop products from the agricultural, from the arable sector. So the difference between those inputs, those phosphorus inputs and those phosphorus offtakes gives you a surplus, gives you an annual accumulation of phosphorus above crop requirement. And we can see for 2021, around about 900 tonnes, additional phosphorus was applied to the agricultural soil surface that was actually required and uptaken by the crops. This is not unusual. This is quite typical, particularly for livestock dominated areas. So I mentioned a suite of metrics that we can use to try and understand how this catchment is behaving, but then also try and understand how it might change in different scenarios. So we have a food system efficiency. So that's basically asking, well, the phosphorus that's coming into the system, in the food system, how efficiently is that converted into agricultural products and food? And for the IRZ, only about 58% efficiency. So only 58% of the phosphorus that was imported into the catchment actually ended up embedded in the foods and products that were produced. Nationally, the average is around about 68%. So the IRZ catchments are a little bit less efficient, a little bit less efficient. We have an agricultural surplus of around about six and a half kilograms per hectare. So essentially what that means for every hectare, there are six and a half kilograms of phosphorus more applied to the agricultural soil surface than was taken up with the crops. So nappy, we call this net anthropogenic input. This is a really helpful indicator of the overall pressure on the landscape. So it's essentially a combination of the agricultural surplus and the phosphorus coming from wastewater treatment. We have a normalized value for loss to water in kilograms per hectare, and we have a source apportionment. So for the IRZ, we would source apportioning between agriculture and wastewater, roughly 50/50 for the IRZ, slightly more apportioned to wastewater. So those are our metrics. So one reason why we think nappy or this indicator, the net anthropogenic input, is really, really important is we actually can establish very, very close links between the pressure on the landscape and actually what is lost from the catchment. So this y-axis here, this is actually a measure of the phosphorus that's been lost to the river, and this x-axis here is the pressure. So the more pressure we have on our landscape, the more likely we are to have losses to water. So it's a very, very good indicator of how inefficient systems with high nappy pressures are likely to have more losses to water. We also see this relationship across different scales and other catchments as well. So it's really nice to see this relationship at these two catchments. So why is there this really strong link between the pressure from wastewater and losses to water? Well, if you remember, this is a combination of agricultural losses to water and losses from wastewater treatment. So from the wastewater effluent, the proportional loss, if I just go back. So if we look here, the load of wastewater, phosphorus going to wastewater treatment, proportionally, a lot more of that is lost to water than the loads from agriculture. The annual pea surpluses increase what we call the legacy soil pea stores, and I'll come to this a little bit more further on. But basically, this surplus has been happening every year for many, many years. So it's been building up over decades and decades. And this build up of phosphorus in the soil we call legacy phosphorus. And if you have a lot of legacy stores in your soil, you have potential or greater potential for losses in storm runoff when you've got soil particles being lost in storm events. And also, when you have a surplus, you have a greater amount of freshly applied phosphorus as well. So you've got freshly applied manures and fertilizers. So you've got a greater risk of loss from freshly applied materials as well. So we decided with the substance flow analysis that we would try five different scenarios. So we say, OK, this system needs changing. How can the system change and what might the impact of that system change be on water quality? Our first one was reducing feed pea content. So if we saw the major import into the catchment was animal feed. So we said, OK, what if the phosphorus content of animal feed was reduced by 10 percent? We asked the question, what would happen if we reduced that catchment pea surplus, that agricultural surplus to zero? So the input to the agricultural soil surface matched the offtakes. We asked the question, what would happen if more pea was recovered from wastewater effluent, which is actually currently happening. So the current investment period for Wessex water, the AMP seven period predicted additional removals. So we modelled what the impact of those would be on the system. And then we combined one, two and three together. And then we we did a more radical scenario where we said, OK, what if actually we need to draw down that soil phosphorus status? So even if you're in balance and you've got a lot of phosphorus in your soil, even if you remain in balance, you're still going to have a high soil phosphorus status. Ideally, you actually need to start tapping into those legacy pea reserves. So what this table is here is essentially the percentage change from our baseline. Or three of those metrics that we were talking about. And we've got our different scenarios here so we can see if we reduce the feed pea, slightly increase the system pea efficiency. It did reduce the surplus a little bit, about 18 percent, but it didn't really have a huge impact on water quality. If we brought our agricultural system into a zero surplus, then we've got a big impact on system efficiency. So a 60 percent increase in our food system efficiency and our agricultural surplus, big percentage drop, as you would expect. And a slightly, slightly bigger impact on water quality. Wastewater pea removal, which has currently happened during AMP 7, doesn't really change the system efficiency. It has a slight increase in the agricultural surplus because the additional pea being removed is likely going to go on to agricultural land, but quite a significant impact on water quality. So the total pea loss to water came down by over 20 percent in that scenario. And then when we combine those scenarios, we've got a slightly more accumulative effect. In terms of surplus and agricultural pea efficiency, obviously going into soil drawdown has a huge effect, but not a massive effect on loss to water. We think one of the reasons why we don't see this massive impact on loss to water is the model that we're using farm scope. We think it's actually limited in its ability to capture the full impact of going to zero surplus or to drawdown. So this is why we're looking at different ways of trying to establish this link between surplus and loss to water. So what are the messages? So reduced VP had limited impact. Reducing the surplus increased system efficiency, as we might expect. Wastewater had by far the biggest impact if we remove in pea from wastewater treatment, as is currently happening in AMP 7. And there will be more pea removed in the next investment period as well in AMP 8. So these combined actions were definitely, definitely the most effective. So we took this to the to the workshop and it's an interesting experience because we come with quite radical ideas about system change, about talking about changes in livestock numbers, about mass export of manures and such like. But generally, people are quite skeptical of that. People would rather stay doing what they're doing and tweak around and tweak around the edges. Although we saw that the combined effects were the most effective, there was the question, is that actually sufficient to reach water quality targets? Which, again, is one of the other reasons why we're looking at other ways of trying to establish the impact of system change on water quality. And another piece of feedback as well was really a lack of knowledge. So if there was going to be a major system change, people really weren't sure how they were going to go about it. There's lack of knowledge, a lack of direction on how that might be facilitated. And at the bottom here, we've got a new source apportionment for the combined scenario. So basically when the wastewater treatment changes are implemented, the source apportionment drifts much more towards agriculture. So agriculture becomes more responsible for wastewater losses. So these are the messages and recommendations from phase one. So we've done the preliminary research identifying the sector contributions to the input pressures in the landscape. We suggest that probably major food system change may be required to reduce the pollution threat. This is likely focused on a livestock industry and manure P excess because the major flows in a system, the major imports are from livestock feed and the major imports are from livestock manure. So the challenge is how do we manage that excess P in livestock manure? Wastewater P loss is very high relative to inputs, but these are currently being targeted in amp seven and amp eight and we model the impact of amp seven. But really what we need was greater clarity on how this surplus of agriculture impacted the P river pollution. And that's really where we moved on to with phase two. So we completed phase one. The report is written up, but it's not yet published and we are currently on with phase two, which I'll talk about now briefly. So what we wanted to do was quantify how the historic legacy has impacted on the catchment. And this is the work that Professor Withers did. And then really start to understand the link between those input pressures and water quality. And then with that, we can then really start to come up with some real clear recommendations for how to reduce the risk of pollution from agriculture. So part one, so it was a historic analysis undertaken from agriculture imports and offtakes going back over 100 years and establishing the surplus in Somerset. We've also undertaken a soil sampling programme as well. That data is currently being analysed. We have most of the most of the data back. We're currently analysing that data. And then so if we know what the soil status is in the catchment and we know what our surpluses are in the catchment, then we can really start to pick this link between agricultural surplus and measured concentrations in the river. So really, we're pulling together all the data that we have in the catchment and then we're going to model building quite a simple model that linked the agricultural surplus, the soil plea build up and then what is the release from that soil to water by one off. And we're also going to undertake a literature review as well that's going to try and understand how long those legacy stores may be residual in the catchment. So if we can start to tap into those legacy stores by actually going into catchment drawdown, what's the timescale for that? Really, the big pitch is assessing the impact of river pay of reducing that surplus and soil peeling down. And as Tim mentioned, later in the year as well, we'll be running another workshop to feed back the phase two work. So historic surpluses, so this is the work that Professor Paul Withers did. Essentially, he went all the way back to 1870 in the Agricultural Archives at Reading University and took data for every five years. And this is what he came up with. So what we have in this top figure here are the total inputs into the Somerset catchment and then the total offtake in the crops. And then in the bottom figure here, this is our annual surplus in the blue line, and then this is our cumulative surplus. And interestingly, we can see even back then, the likelihood is that actually the catchment was in agricultural surplus. There was more phosphorus going onto the agricultural soil surface than was being offtaken in the crops. And what that means is we've had a continual build up of phosphorus in the landscape over that period of time. The equivalent to around about two and a half tonnes of phosphorus per hectare over that time period. So it's interesting to note that it's not a recent problem. And actually the surplus peaked somewhere around about the late 70s, early 80s and has steadily been coming down. But we are currently still in surplus. So there's a huge amount of phosphorus that's gone onto that landscape over the last 100 years. So it receives a lot of pressure from agriculture. This is the soil sampling data. Apologies for the slightly sketchy map. We are going to produce a proper map in GIS. So really what we're doing here, we've collected soil samples from 26 different farms. It equates to 236 samples in total. We've sampled at two different depths. So we've sampled at zero to 15 and 15 to 30 centimetres. Typically, farmers would only sample down to seven and a half or 15 centimetres. So we're looking a little bit deeper to see if any of that phosphorus is migrated lower down into the soil profile. I mean, classic soil science would understand that phosphorus tends to reside in the top layers of the soil. But we wanted to understand if there's phosphorus in the deeper layers and that might help us account for all the phosphorus input that's happened in our models. So we've spanned the three catchments. We've got quite good distribution. It's quite tricky because actually in this catchment there's a huge variation in soil types. Probably more than anywhere we've looked previously. So we've really had to try and capture all the different soil types within the catchment. And there are various soil analyses that we're doing. Some fairly standard aquacultural analyses. Well, then things like the oxalate extractable. Those give us an indication of the ability of the soil to actually hold on to phosphorus. So we can determine a phosphorus absorbance capacity. So we can essentially measure the binding sites for phosphorus in the soil. And also, we can understand how saturated that soil is as well. So how full that binding capacity is. And there's quite a clear relationship between the saturation of the soil with regard to its binding capacity and again, the risk of loss to water. And also, we're going to do what we call this desperate analysis. And this is a lab based modelled approach to measuring runoff risk as well. Our phosphorus in runoff risk. So this work is very much ongoing at the moment. So we're just finishing off some of the analysis in the labs and we're processing all the data as we speak. So this is where we get into the relationship between this agricultural surplus and the riverine phosphorus. And really, we want to try and really nail down this relationship to an aquacultural P surplus and aquacultural P soil status and the risk of loss to water. I won't go into this in too much detail. It's quite complicated, but essentially what we can use is something we call CQ analysis. And what this analysis does, it looks at the relationship between the flow in the river and the concentration in the river. And to put it quite simply, if so on this X axis here, we have our flow, which is increasing, and on the Y axis we have our concentration here that's increasing. If the flow is increasing and the concentration is decreasing, as we see in this portion of the curve here, basically the flow is diluting the phosphorus concentration. This is very classic of what we call a point source signal, for example, from a wastewater treatment plant. So where we see this relationship, we can be fairly confident that this phosphorus is coming from wastewater. The opposite, when the flow is increasing and the concentration is increasing, generally what we're seeing there is mobilization of P from aquacultural fields. So this, if we see this signal, we're essentially looking at diffuse signals from aquaculture. So from different points across the catchment, we can start to understand what are the main sources of phosphorus used in this CQ analysis. And using, this is just some preliminary data that we've got now across the two catchments that we've been working with. So that relationship that we saw with the NAPI, it holds really true with the aquacultural surplus. We've got a very strong relationship with aquacultural surplus and total P exported into the river. So it just demonstrates how critical aquacultural surplus is or managing aquacultural surplus is to water quality. And this is. So this is about predicting the release from the legacy soil P release as well. So we've got our historic analysis so we know how much P is accumulated historically. We have our soil data from our soil samples so we can start to see what those legacy pools are. So we can start to understand actually how much phosphorus is in the aquaculture soil in the catchment. So collating available soil P data. There are. So this is some previous data that's been done under, that Paul's done under a phosphorus or phosphate loss tool. So very clear relationships between the soil P status, this is also P, so this is an agronomic measure of the soil P status. And then the total dissolved P. So this is the phosphorus that's lost in runoff. And depending on the soil type, there are very clear relationships between the soil P status and the risk of loss through surface runoff. So this is work that was established previously under a different phosphate loss tool. So this essentially is what we're hoping to produce in the Somerset catchments or produce a similar piece of work. So for each of the soil types within the catchment, we'll be able to determine that for the all some P status of that soil, what the likely loss from that soil will be under a diffuse loss scenario. And then the decibel analysis, so that's the desktop approach, essentially is a modelled way of trying to come up with the same data. And hopefully between with the decibel analysis, we'll be able to really understand what's going on. So that's me. That's a bit of a whistle stop to or through what we've done, very much an update, hopefully not too complex. But I would happily take any questions now. Thank you. Shane, Dr Rothwell, thank you very much for that. Really useful, very interesting. I know I've got a couple of questions to start with. And as ever, the vice chair has put his name down before anybody else. So Henry Hopphaus, please. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you, Sean and Tim, for a very good presentation. You know what I'm going to come up with in a minute, Tim, because I did it on the discussion we had after the first thing. But the first thing I want to make clear to this committee is that the restrictions on the water going on to the levels is not taken into account of by your work. Tim, would you like to confirm that? We knew straight away that Turner was wrong. Let Shane answer that. No problem. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, no, we we are working at the catchment scale. Yeah, that was that was our remit. But the impact risk zone, that's the water that is feeding towards the levels and moles. And so I guess the inference is that if you sort out the potential sources upstream, the risk actually to the to the Ramsar sites is reduced. The problem, Sean, is that since 1100, man has played with the levels and the rivers are higher than the actual levels. And the amount going onto the levels is not going to go down to 2 percent, but it's certainly less than 10 percent of what's coming down the catchment. And that directly affects what you put in front of us here from the point of view of the levels, which are what we are supposed to be discussing. Yeah, I mean, our remit was to look at the catchment scale and look at the impact risk zone, so to then take that down a level to look at actually what's going on to the levels would be a different piece of work. And there is some work planned. I described it at the last screening meeting on the 26th of April as to what Wessex water investigations are planned, looking at the cycling of legacy phosphorus within the protected sites and the flows within the protected sites to try and answer that question. So it's definitely a valid question, but one that the evidence for is quite thin at the present time. Thank you. Not quite finished yet. Sorry for the rest of you. I'm going into science now. The first question is why on your oxalate don't you have calcium? Well, we have total calcium, so you can't extract calcium with oxalate. It doesn't work, but we have total calcium. So, yeah, we, if for some of the soils in the catchment are quite brashy, so those soils, what we will actually, I'll just go back to it. So one thing we need to do. Here we go. Yeah, so if needs be, so what we're going to do, sorry, I'll just sort this out. So we will have, we look at all the data from the oxalate perspective to start with. And there is a question mark of whether the oxalate method works with high calcium soils and some of the soils in the catchment are what we call brashy, so they are high calcium. If those, if it becomes clear that those soils are not working within our model, we have another approach we can use called the single point isotherm. So it's an alternative method of essentially getting that saturation index and that absorbance capacity. But we will only do that if the oxalate method is not working for the brashy soils. One final question on your graphs, I can't see any use of the pH on the way the flan have had this discussion already, Tim, you know, because for the rest of you, anything below seven is iron. Anything between five and nine is aluminium and above nine, it's normally calcium that's holding the phosphate in the soil. And on the graphs, I can see no variable of the pH. Yeah, we have all that data that will all be looked at when we do the analysis. But yeah, I mean, we, there are many factors that we'll look at in terms of the modelling. So we'll look at the pH, we'll look at the total calcium, we'll look at the organic matter content. We'll look at the silt fraction as well, because that can have quite an impact on the absorbance capacity. So, yeah, in the full analysis, all these things will be taken account of. Thanks very much, Shane. I've got next question from the executive member is Councillor Dixie Dutch. Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much, Shane, for a really interesting presentation. I'm really pleased that this kind of in-depth research is taking place. My questions are probably rather more basic than Henry's. That would be really important to know. I think we've got someone online or is that? Oh, is it? OK. OK, I'll carry on anyway. When you talk about bringing the agricultural system into zero P surplus, does that mean no fertilizers, no livestock, or does it mean some farming using livestock and fertilizer, but taking into account whatever crops are taking up that that that P? So that's that's kind of a really rookie, rookie question, but I need to know that to understand it. My other question is a bit more kind of almost philosophical, really, that if we did all of this, if we reduced, you know, if we if we stopped the phosphorus input onto the levels. What would happen to the legacy phosphorus? And it was really interesting seeing that peak in presumably fertiliser use in the in the 1970s. Would it over, you know, decades, centuries kind of disappear or or would it would it stay there? And then just a couple more questions. Will this research be shared with Defra, for example? And I noticed that as far as we are aware, they're not public. They were what Defra used to calculate their regional balances and. Turn the volume down. Yeah. Well, maybe that that maybe that will help with your cuttings, but I don't know. I think it's someone else in Shane's office. I think. Yes, I don't. Sorry. Yeah. Hey, Shane's office. Why we need some better stuff. The point is, Shane muted himself. Well, yes, that would help. Shane, are you muting while the question's wrong? You are. Thank you very much. OK, carry on, Dixie. So, yes. So will this research be be shared with Defra and Natural England? I see that Karen Nadden online has asked some questions like, could we reduce P in food stocks? Would biochar make a difference? So it's about kind of land. Is that going to feed through to land management? Organizations that can guide that. And finally, has this research being peer reviewed yet? Or does that happen after publication? Forgive my ignorance about academic research. I am I'm much more involved in literature with academic research than phosphate. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you for your questions. OK, first one, surplus. So there are many ways you can tackle that surplus. I mean, fundamentally, it's just the difference between the balance between the input and the offtake. So where the surplus is driven by manure and livestock, as is in this catchment, I guess there are two approaches. You could actually say, OK, we reduce the livestock population, which is not very palatable to the farming population. Or what is probably more feasible is looking at actually manure export. So there are parts of the country, particularly in the east of the country, where we have much more arable dominated systems that would quite happily take that manure as a fertilizer input. This has been known for a long time. There are all sorts of logistical challenges about moving manure. There are also questions about manure is not just phosphorus. Manure is also organic matter. Manure is also nitrogen, both of which would be very good if they could stay in the catchment. I can't remember what we did in our scenario. I think what we said in our scenario, we reduced some fertilizer input and then we exported some manure. So there are many ways you could do it. It's just really about changing that agricultural system. And yeah, where manure is the main problem, it's about livestock numbers and/or manure export. Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you. OK. Yeah, thank you. What will happen to legacy P? Yeah, I mean, that is a very good question. If you theoretically just take your system to a zero P balance, that legacy P is still there. So in theory, it is still a diffusion risk. If you want to tackle that legacy P, really that needs to be drawn down. And the only real way to draw that down is by farming that land and taking off crops that are containing that phosphorus without actually putting the phosphorus on. So actually that kilograms per hectare becomes a negative value, becomes a minus value. The timescale of that is not fully known, but we understand it could be in the decades. It's a long, long time. So legacy P is not a quick fix. It's a long, long term fix. And it's really, really important to understand that this is the impact over 100 years of farming. It isn't going to be fixed overnight, but unless you deal with it, it is going to be there and it is likely still going to remain as a diffusion risk. The next question will research be shared? I shall defer that question to Tim because the report will be going to the Catchment Partnership Group. Yes. So Environment Agency and Natural England are partners in this and so have been involved from the start right through. So this is definitely feeding in to their organisation's strategies for improving water quality in Somerset. I can't speak about Defra. We haven't had any engagement with Defra on this project other than Professor Withers getting data out of them. We're across census data, but it's once the work is complete. It would make sense to to make to raise awareness of it because Defra have been very involved in the issues and the why. And so they would definitely be aware of the equivalent research that Biscayne University have done in the way. And then, sorry, just no thanks. Thanks, Tim. That's helpful. Yeah, thank you, Tim. And is this peer reviewed? This this report won't be peer reviewed. No, just because it's. Yeah, it won't go through the peer review system. We are currently in the process of producing a manuscript for the work we've actually done in the Dorset Stour. Whether we will for the Somerset work, I'm not sure. But if we go down the academic publication route, then of course, yeah, that will go through the normal peer review process. But this report won't be won't be peer reviewed. But it has been reviewed by project partners. So EA and any technical specialists received the draft reports and have the opportunity to comment, as do Wessex Water Capture and Scientists and NFU and so on. So there is there is an element of review to it, but just not formal academic review for the Somerset work at this stage. Thank you. Has that answered all the questions, Dixie? Thank you very much on that, Shane. The next question I've got is from Councillor Mike Rigby. Thank you. I've got two questions. I'll ask them in turn, if I may. Just before I ask them, I just want to say thank you very much for that presentation. It was very interesting and understandable as well, which was something of the challenge, I would think, with these sorts of subjects. So thank you for being able to do that. My first question is that presumably the river data that you gathered to produce this work was collected using spot sampling. Yes. Yeah, we just use the Environment Agency data. We don't collect any data ourselves. So it's all the sampling data. And is that collected by spot sampling, the EA data? I. Yeah. To be to be to be fair with the water quality stuff is Kirsty and Paul's remit. But my understanding is, yes, I don't think there are any continual continuous type monitors in place. I think it's just spot sampling. That's great. Thank you very much for that. And I know that the baseline from 2019 shows that Wessex Waters contribution was 43 percent. Do you know what that figure will be after the AMP seven improvements? It will presumably fall. But do you know what to do? I would have to I'd have to look at the report to let you know that. But yeah, it does it does drop, obviously, as you can imagine them in the scenario. What did the scenario tell us? Yeah, so if it's combined and we talk about the percentage source apportionment. Is that correct? Yes. So the percentage of the Pins in the in the system was 43 percent coming from Wessex Water in 2019. And obviously it was more than that, wouldn't it? Where were we? Yeah, 52 percent. OK, I've seen 43, but let's go with 52. It's just a question of what that would fall to after the AMP seven. Yeah. If you don't have an answer now, maybe you could email it to me. Yeah, OK. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm going to go online now because Councillor Bradford Allen is has been waiting for quite some time to come in. So, Alan, are you there? I am, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Roth for a very interesting topic. And what a what a vast subject it is. And when you go back over 100 years, I was quite surprised to see some of the some of the charts you were putting up, actually. Because farming has changed a lot in 100 years, that you know, to change probably more in the last 20 than anything at all. The introduction of slurry and bigger, bigger cow units, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas before that was about people were on dry, dry bedding. You probably don't know what I mean by that. Using straw. Using straw, a lot of it. And there was no runoff at all from any of the farms then. And that's how it was. They were smaller, a lot more manageable. The soil was looked after a lot better because you took the farmyard manure out, which you made with the straw. The earthworms took it down and the earthworms improved the drainage. And that's how you improve your soils. The things have changed through economics. You've all got very, very cheap milk now, called the beginning flats of these big dairy units, which are getting bigger and bigger. It's the only way they can survive. And you've got this stuff that comes at the backside of cows that are really causing a tremendous change. So my question is, if we went back to smaller units and dry bedding again, would that make a difference? And by the way, I'm a farmer for 77 years, learning all the time. I did have farm land on the Somerset levels when I was a bit younger. And believe it or not, we used to sow basic slag on those fields early in my farming career. And you know what basic slag is? It's a byproduct in the South Wales mines, rich in phosphate to make the grass grow, believe it or not. I don't want to bore you. I said that last meeting, but you've got a chap here that probably on this committee, nobody's talking about. You've got a lot of experience and you've visited a lot of farms and you see the changes going on. And I can't really understand why you got it in your mind to take manure to the east. Because that floods just as much as the Somerset levels. It's all under a basic sea level, you know that. Eventually a lot of that will be taken back with the sea. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'd just like to put on a couple of those. I could talk for this on a lot, a lot of time, actually, because when you go on the Somerset levels, the soil types do change. Some is very, very thin. Everything runs straight through it, straight away. Hopeless soil, right four or five, six. That's why it's so cheap. You want the better land that retains moisture, retains all the nutrients, then you're on grade land. And that's why you've got such a big difference in the value of land. You've got grade one land, anything from twelve to twenty thousand an acre, and you've got the grade three, four, fives, the repeat. Not much good for anything else but growing grass. Having said that, people have started ploughing it when they shouldn't do, probably growing a lot of maize recently. And that's why you've got other things happening in agriculture. But I'm sorry to harp on, but I find this subject so interesting that I could talk about it for a long time. So any thoughts on that, Doctor? Yeah, thank you. I also I can get. Yeah, I can talk all day about phosphorus and farming systems. So, yeah, I'm quite happy to chat all day. But I mean, your first comment then talking about, I guess what I would class as more extensive type farming systems. And there's no there's no doubt that more traditional, more extensive farming systems, they rely much less on external inputs. So where we see the big phosphorus surpluses that are driven by manure, it's mostly driven by intensive agriculture, mostly by intensive dairy systems or intensive poultry systems, because those systems are so reliant on external feed input. So the phosphorus that those livestock are being fed on for cows, there is some phosphorus coming from grass grown within the catchment, but there's also a large amount of supplementary feed. Often that supplementary feed is in soya and maize that's coming over the Atlantic in boats. So we have this phosphorus coming into the system because the modern bred livestock demand high energy, they demand high phosphorus, and then only so much of that phosphorus can actually end up in the product. So it can only actually end up in the milk or can actually end up in the carcass of a broiler chicken, for example. So the rest of it ends up in the manure and what is in the manure in these intensively dominated areas far exceeds what can be grown locally in the crops. So if your farming system is more reliant on what you can actually grow on your farm or grow locally with minimal inputs that are more in balance, that would be a much better farming system. I mean, the challenge that we have, as I no doubt you know, is our food systems have driven farming down these intensive routes for efficiency. That's really and this is a really important point to make and one that we try and stress that we don't see this as a farmer problem. We see this as a food system problem. It's the food system of driven farmers down this road of intensification where they're very, very heavily reliant on these external inputs. And that's what leads to these surpluses. And your second point about moving stuff to the east. I mean, there is demand. I mean, our analysis shows that a lot of the arable areas in the UK are actually currently in phosphorus drawdown because fertilizer prices are so high at the moment. There is actually more coming off in our arable crops in the east of the country than is going on. So if you can match those off takes with those inputs, there's no no problem in using those using those manures. You know, the nutrients in those manures, if applied correctly, will be will be utilized and won't be a eutrophication threat. It's just the logistics and challenges of how do we move nutrients from one side of the country to the other. And the east could be Wiltshire. That's all. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. It's not all about going to East Anglia. It's digestate from Somerset arable digesters that goes up the A303 to Wiltshire already. So thank you very much for that. Most of the straw a day goes into power units, it's like energy for the country. So really one step forward and six battery isn't it? Thank you Alan. And you're laughing and you're laughing. It's me that's laughing, Alan, because you put the point so succinctly. I'm going to go on to Richard Wilkins. Thank you, Mr Chairman, it was such an interesting committee. Thank you. It is indeed. Can I go on to Richard Wilkins, please? Councillor Wilkins. Thank you, Chair. And thank you for really quite an informative and, as Dixie put it, succinct presentation. I was interested in the, again, the communicative surplus and how we can draw that back down to acceptable levels. You alluded to a change of farming methods per chance and the fact that you weren't sure how long it would take, maybe decades, maybe longer. Has there or are there any planned pilots in any areas? And also what sort of you alluded that it would be a crop based solution as opposed to a livestock based solution. And presumably, as you know, the levels in our area, crops, which crops are grown would be intriguing from a legacy point of view. I could only really think of with these growing on the levels, but has any thought process gone into that? Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you. Good question. Your first one about the legacy piece of that, there have been some drawdown trials done nationally. ADAS won some drawdown trials a few years ago now. I think they finished about five or six years ago. And the outcome from them was decades or more to draw agricultural soils down to suitable indices. We also did a controlled environment piece of work ourselves here, actually, as part of our previous refocus project. So we collected soils from three catchments we were working in. So there was the wye, the welland and then the barn in Northern Ireland. And we ran a essentially controlled environment drawdown trial here at the university. We essentially grew ryegrass in some small what we call mesocosms pots for nearly two years without any phosphorus input so we can start to model the drawdown rates in those soils. That's not published yet, but the initial findings kind of agree really that decades or more. So in some of the wye soils where there's a very low phosphorus buffer and capacity, they were drawing down much, much quicker. But where you've got a stronger buffering capacity, it's a long time to draw it down. But it isn't a fully understood science yet. So it's definitely an area where we need better understanding. And so apologies, I forget your second point that you asked. I didn't write it down in time. It was in regard to crop types in particular for the levels and the surrounding areas. I know that's a difficult question because you've already alluded to four different soil types, but presumably that would have to factor into your thinking. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's not in our remit to suggest how farming, you know, that sort of level of detail. So, I mean, fundamentally, if you're growing something, even if you're growing grass and you're harvesting that grass and there's no phosphorus input, that would still have the same effect. So the phosphorus is going into the grass. As long as there's no fertilizer on manure input onto that grass, that system will go into drawdown. So it would be around about the appropriate crop, the appropriate soil, the appropriate place. Yeah. You also asked about whether any pilots planned. At the moment, well, we haven't had discussions about what a phase three of this project would look like, but we would invite the views of others. Certainly Somerset Council as to what they thought the research should look at next. But my personal view is that something with a manure focus and helping individual farmers calculate their nutrient balance. So we've looked at figures on a catchment scale, but for individual farms where we have looked at it before, there's huge variation between farm types. So you could have one intensive dairy with a very high surplus and another intensive dairy. It's got a good amount of arable land and is able to manage that manure better, could have quite a low surplus. So and then it's how you facilitate the export of manure, if that is the most appropriate thing in those circumstances. Can I give you a direct answer, please? Yes. FwAG are running two and are funded two research projects on the levels, one at Ship Lake under the RSPCB shoulders. The other one I've yet to locate. I understand the farmer's name is Bradford and I get to actually find out exactly what he's doing. Do we need to do you come back to Shane on that one or is that satisfactory answer? Yeah. OK. Look, I'm going to cap this very soon. I do appreciate all the questions that come in, but we're running over time as ever. So I've got Steve Ashton, Matt Martin and Roz Weick online. And then I'd like to close it unless anybody has any serious objections. So once again, off the substitutes bench. Yeah, as usual, making an impact. Steve Ashton, please. Thank you. My question relates to the biosolids going from the wastewater treatment works to the agriculture. It seems like you're putting system putting extracted phosphate back into the system. What are the opportunities or implications of breaking that link there? Do you want to go first Shane? And then I can follow up. Yeah, I was going to say it probably is more of a question for you Tim, but I mean the recycling process from biosolids to agriculture is fairly standard and there are some parts of the country where biosolids are not returned to agricultural land. We're currently working with partners in Belgium and the Netherlands, all of their and in Northern Ireland, all their biosolids are actually incinerated to produce energy. So there are alternative approaches, but from a circular economy perspective. So one of the challenges we have with phosphorus is that it is a finite resource and we are in this country entirely reliant on imported mines, phosphorus to meet our food system demand. So from a circular nutrient economy perspective, recycling of nutrients from our own waste back to food production is a good contributor to the circular nutrient economy. I'll let you follow up on that Tim. Yeah, with all organic manures, it's how you use and manage it. So biosolids applied according to a nutrient management plan where there's a crop need. It's a valuable resource as a soil conditioner for the organic matter, as well as what changes said about it being an alternative to imported rock phosphate. So Wessex Water have been investing a lot in sludge storage barns so that we can stockpile under cover over winter and not have so many outside stockpiles. And we've got a team of farm advisors who are working with farmers on that nutrient management plan side of things to make sure it's distributed as efficiently as possible to where it needs to go. Just come back for a second. Yeah, I'm talking about actually rather than putting it back into the loop here, taking it out to the area and not effectively reducing phosphates in that big window there. That's largely happening already because a lot of our biosolids go to the arable areas of Wessex. So a lot will go to Wiltshire and arable parts of Dorset. Thank you, Tim. Right, Matt Martin, please. Thank you, Mr Vice Chairman. Dr Rothwell, thank you for your excellent and comprehensive presentation. I wonder with your modelling tools and excuse me if I've missed this in the detail of your of your work there. What would happen as just as a thought experiment, or rather have you considered what would happen if you just took away all the dairy or beef based agriculture in the area? If you took out that major component, what what would happen to the overall spectrum, I suppose, of minerals? Would that immediately resolve itself or would there be an immediate deficiency in other stuff? Yeah, I mean, I mean, we're talking here about really, really radical food system change. And so, OK, so for example, let's let's remove the dairy industry from the from the catchment. What would the impact of that be? We haven't modelled that. It's probably a little bit too unpalatable for people. But I mean, it is something we could model and most of this livestock feed import and most of this manure here is is is attributed to the to the dairy sector. I mean, it's not that straightforward, because if you if you remove the dairy sector, then what's going to happen to the agricultural land? Is that land still in production? Is it going to have alternative production? Is it going to go to non agricultural use? If it goes to non agricultural use, what then is happening to the legacy pea? But from from a system perspective, radical change like that would hugely change the dynamics of the nutrient flows. But there are bigger questions then of how how that land is used. And then in particular, what happens to those legacy pea stores? Thank you. If I can just quickly follow up on that, I mean, that's an interesting idea in as much as from my point of view, from a political point of view, this may be an experiment which is about to run itself in that we have beef deals coming in from Canada, New Zealand and Australia, which are going to greatly undercut our own beef production. Not necessarily dairy production. So should that happen? And the farmers around my way, especially out on the levels, find that it's just not economically viable to produce beef. This may be an experiment that runs itself, at least in a small way. Yeah, absolutely. And any scenario like that, if we have numbers of percentage of change or numbers of livestock changes, we can model those scenarios. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And finally, Councillor Roswike, online, please. Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. Really informative. I'm just curious about the sampling a bit more. I appreciate you've taken other people's sampling, but I don't know whether you've looked at them at all in terms of have they been sampled throughout the year or just in certain times? Because I'm aware that obviously farmers put phosphate on their land at certain times. And when the water is extracted again, maybe other times in the year. So I'm just wondering if we're adding two and two together and getting the right answer. The second question I have is that in my part of Somerset, the Brew and the Sheppey have the rivers have overtopped quite considerably for the first time in some areas for probably centuries. And the question I have is when the phosphate actually dissolved in the water and it's been transported by it, is it at the top of the column, i.e. right at the surface, or is it mixed consistently throughout the whole of the water? Because when a river overtops, it's really the top layer of water, which is then going on to the agricultural fields. And I'm just wondering if we've got any understanding of that dynamic at all? Thank you. Yeah, OK. Yeah, thank you for your question. EA sampling in theory, monthly sampling at a minimum, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less frequently. It is an acknowledged weakness that the EA sampling isn't always consistent, but pretty much we've got monthly sampling. And it does cover the whole range of flows, which is what's critical for us. There is a question mark over whether the sampling misses those very, very high flow events, because those very, very high flow events is probably where most of the agricultural phosphorus has been lost. A significant proportion of the agricultural loss may happen in just a handful of events in the year, maybe even one or two events of the year. So if they're lost, then that is a question mark. So we are a little bit constrained by the sampling, but we have enough because we also look at multiple years as well. So not just one year, so we have multiple years. So we've got enough to do the work that we need, but it could always be better. Your second question about rivers overtopping. So when phosphorus is in the river, it generally won't be, it would be mostly associated with soil particles. So I would imagine it will be quite mixed in the water column. There is an interesting question that some of these floodplain areas, and this is something I guess is a little bit of an aside. We don't know whether some of them are acting as phosphorus sinks or whether they're acting as phosphorus sources. So if you've got a flooding onto an area and there's phosphorus laden silts going onto the area, if that silts is then deposited, it may actually be a sink of phosphorus onto that landscape or there may be different dynamics where the flooding is actually taking soil particles away. And that's another scientific question that we don't know the answer to. But I guess that's a little bit of an aside to your question. Thank you. Now, I was going to cap that, but Councillor Bradford is once again playing truant and coming, he's decided he's going to come in with a question. Really quickly, Alan, please, we're running very late. It will be quickly, Mr Chairman, I realise you're on wheels. I know what I'd like to be chairman on wheels. I'm on wheels all my life. OK, yeah, right. First of all, I'm going to bring up tidal rivers. What an impact they must have on certain things. And I would like to know some of these results from Currimore where water is held for something like two or three months of the year. Be interested to see on some of these things, because a lot of these places that are flooded, that's why you've got the high phosphate levels, it's not natural. Years ago, places used to flood, used to dry out, water was gone, you get on with your life, things was OK. But all of a sudden we've got all these environmental schemes with the greatest respect of people who think about it all and they flood areas that really shouldn't be flooded. And that's my question, really. OK, yeah, thank you. Sorry, complex. The tidal question, so the upper tidal limit is where our modelling finishes. So we don't consider the impact of any tidally influenced zones. And the Currimore, again, that's outside our remit at the moment, and that's drawing down in scale to more detail. We've very much been focused at the wider catchment scale, but you're right, I think it's such a complex area, hydrologically, agriculturally and from a soil perspective as well, that more detailed understanding is required. Thank you very much for the answer. Thank you very much. Good luck with your job. Thank you. Thank you very much. River Bradford Henry. Alan, I'm reeling you in now, please. Can I say thank you to Tim for coming in and thank you for the extended time you've given us, Shane. It's been it's been fascinating. And I'm like Dixie, you know, in the previous discussion, several members of this group took the opportunity to boast, frankly, about their A-level chemistry and various other things. I'm not from that background, but that was that was pretty understandable. And if you could get it across to me, then I'm sure everybody else appreciate it. So thank you very much. I think we've run a very good discussion on that one. OK, I'm going to move on now to item number seven. Now, this is the executive response to scrutiny recommendations from our special meeting on water quality on the 26th of April. And first of all, I'm going to invite Jamie Jackson to read a statement from a member of the public, David Orr. Thank you, Sharon. And Mr. Orr is online. We elect councillors to make Somerset the best place it can be. You are in charge of policy. Officers advise the current nutrient neutrality policy is, I feel, an act of unnecessary self-harm, which is damaging Somerset. The KC draft opinion was received by this council, a verbal and undocumented meeting took place when the KC was instructed that all Wessex Water headroom at their works had been used up by previous planning permissions. The draft opinion and the meeting notes are withheld. In my opinion, the officers attending the verbal briefing of the KC were not senior enough, nor was Wessex Water as a strategic partner allowed to participate as subject matter experts. Planning officers are not qualified water industry engineers. The council's view that all the headroom at Taunton's wastewater works had been used up makes no sense. The district council planned for 17,000 new homes by 2028. Of the 18,000 held up homes across Somerset, 10,000 lie within Taunton D. I regard the KC opinion made after the confidential verbal briefing as unsound. I recommend that this council work collaboratively with Wessex Water to transparently document the headroom across the catchment area, then instruct the KC to reassess his advice following a new written instruction based on that documented and verified work. The habitats regulation requires a precautionary approach, but doesn't give a number. In 2024, despite improvements, there is still an assumption that 100% of phosphates from new homes gets onto the moors and levels daily, then another 20% is added. Since 2018, Wessex Water has removed a huge amount of phosphates from their daily discharges. In Taunton, the level of phosphates entering the river tone is just 7% of what it was six years ago. The council owns the phosphate mitigation calculator. Amending the precautionary factor in the spreadsheet from 1.2 to 1.0 is a very quick task, retains a precautionary approach and reduces the cost of phosphate credits. Your recommendation is sound. The officer briefing to the executive, I feel, doesn't accord enough courtesy and respect to Dr Clegg's voluntary and unpaid work these past four years, when no one else was measuring phosphates out in the real world. Somerset has a unique man-made river system, which will allow a confident council to set pragmatic nutrient neutrality policy that respects our unique place. Well, thank you for reading that, Jamie, and thank you to David Orr for presenting that detailed analysis and question. He made one or two suggestions and accusations in there that certainly would demand an answer. I'm happy to invite Kate Murdoch to give a response, Kate. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to Mr Orr for his statement. So we have drafted a response mainly to... Sorry, I'm getting told that Ros White wants to come in. Ros, do you want to come in on this urgently? I have you down next. I was going to give an introduction to the officer's report to the committee, but it's in your hands, Chair, if you don't want to receive it, go straight to the officer. So I have that. And I'm going to ask Kate to give a verbal summary. I'm asking Kate now to just to respond to Mr Orr's letter. I'll come back to you. OK, my apologies. Thank you. So, yeah, I just wanted to correct a number of inaccuracies raised by Mr Orr's statement so that members are clear. So the first one is he refers to nutrient neutrality as a policy. Again, nutrient neutrality is not a policy. It is national advice from Natural England as the statutory nature conservation body. Local authorities are the ultimate decision makers, but they are required by law to consult Natural England as part of a habitats assessment process. We have to give Natural England's advice considerable weight and we have to provide cogent reasons to depart from it. The other point I wanted to correct is that he talks about the council's view on the headroom. And this will be this is covered in the executive report under paragraphs 19 to 23 and will also be explained further in the presentation. And what we would like to emphasise again, if evidence is provided to demonstrate improvements to the Taunton wastewater treatment works have been provided to ensure the future housing growth is mitigated for rather than just accommodated for to ensure operation within the permit limit. Then the council will, of course, consider this evidence. The other one is around the 20% buffer and again we picked this up in the executive report and that's covered in paragraph 7 to 11 in the executive report and I will go through it in the presentation to follow. The buffer is included in all the national nutrient load calculators, so not just Somerset's and is based on Natural England's advice as the statutory nature conservation body. The buffer ensures the mitigation measures satisfy the precautionary approach legally required by the habitat regulations. And the only final one I wanted to kind of correct and pick up on is that the executive report and briefing is respectful of Dr Clegg's voluntary research. We've thanked him for that. However, the council needs to acknowledge that Natural England's feedback as the statutory conservation body is an important factor and they have commented on the research. It means that we cannot rely on Dr Clegg's research as cogent evidence to justify taking an alternative approach to either the 20% buffer or the quantity of phosphates mitigation required going forward. And Dr Clegg himself has acknowledged the limitations of his research, and that's all I'd like to say at this stage, Chair. Right, thank you very much. I don't think I need to go on with that. I think in the body of what you present later on we can ask questions. I would like to now invite Councillor Ros-Wyke to introduce Kate to give the verbal summary, please. Thank you, Chair. My apologies being removed online. Sometimes it's difficult to take the move of the movement of the committee. I would like to first of all thank the scrutiny committee on behalf of the executive for holding a dedicated water quality session on the 25th of April. It was a very informative session. In fact, we've had a lot of information, again, well presented to us today, but it's very evident that the research being carried out and is underway continually on nutrient pollution on the levels and walls. And the role of the various partners operating within the field is quite complex and as is the need for additional research is probably becoming the more we know, the more we know, we don't know the old expression. I particularly wanted to thank Dr Clegg and his team of volunteers for the water sampling they've undertaken on sections of the River Parrot to help understand the nutrient pollution sources. And I think there is obviously considerable more work to be done in that area. The session as today identify the complexity of water movements and pollution sources on the Somerset levels and more. And we work on the opportunity to work with key partners in the future to develop our understanding and to work in partnership to restore the Somerset level moors in the longer term. At the current time, the Council is focusing resources on delivering additional nutrient mitigation schemes, utilizing the £9.6 million government funding we've been awarded for this purpose. To date, over 600 dwellings have been progressed with nutrient mitigation and further large scale development sites are in progress with their own site solutions. We've published a wealth of guidance to support development industry and to facilitate the third party credit market. We now have sufficient credits to unlock a further four and a half thousand homes in Somerset, and we will continue to work on increasing the supply, which will help bring costs down. We acknowledge that nutrient neutrality continues to be a challenge for developers, not just in Somerset, but across the country, and we will continue to work to find ways to minimize this burden wherever we can. Whilst at this stage, the Executive is unable to support the recommendations made by the Scrutiny Committee based on the legal advice to date and the limited resources available. We will continue to consider new evidence and legal advice where this is raised, but at the same time, we must also ensure the legal and financial risks to the Council and Somerset taxpayer is minimized. I will hand over now to Kate Murdoch, who will give you a more detailed presentation of the issues raised from the Scrutiny recommendations. Thank you. Thank you, Roz, and Kate, over to you. Great, thank you, Chair. So this is the same presentation that we gave to the Executive yesterday, but I will expand on a few points that have been raised since that point. So just to remind everyone that the recommendations came out of the special water quality session that this committee held on the 26th of April. The purpose of that committee session was to share with the committee research underway to understand the nutrient pollution sources on the Somerset levels and moors, and we've had more research today. It was also to outline the roles and actions of key organizations tackling the nutrient pollution issue. And it was also to flag up and highlight that Somerset Council does not have a statutory responsibility for water quality. We are, of course, a key partner in trying to address this issue, but we don't have a statutory responsibility for water quality per se. And the Chair's introduction on the day was very clear that the session was not about revisiting neutrality. It was about understanding the kind of pollution sources on the Somerset levels and moors and the challenges to tackle that. I just would like to note that nutrient neutrality is a national approach, which I've just highlighted with David Hall's statement. It's supported by case law and it's followed by approximately 70 local planning authorities all impacted by nutrient neutrality across the country. And that includes Cornwall Council. So I'll just run through the climate and place recommendations, and I understand that Councillor Mansell's raised a particular issue with one of them. So the first one was to immediately remove the 20% buffer included in the Somerset phosphate calculator. The second was to conduct a review of the inconsistency between Dr Clegg's research and what the Somerset calculator requires in terms of how much river-borne phosphorus enters the Somerset levels and moors. Third one was to conduct a review of the entire nutrient neutrality policy, again, reminding everyone that it's not policy, it's national advice supported by case law. In light of the legal advice we have received, which makes it clear that headroom exists and that it could be used as mitigation for new housing development. And I'll pick up the difference of opinion in that one as we move through the presentation. The fourth recommendation was that the climate and place set up a task and finish group, which will report back to the committee on a tight timescale to set out the options available to the council once it is in possession of the correct data. And the fifth one was the council looks to work on a land use strategy as part of the local plan. So I will now take each of these in turn. But before I do that, I just wanted to remind everyone of the legal advice that has been circulated to all members. And so Natural England are the statutory nature conservation body and the legal briefing is very clear that decision makers must adopt a precautionary approach where protected sites might be affected. And in Somerset's case, that's the Somerset Levels and Malls and the River Axe. Development can only be consented where there is no reasonable scientific doubt that the impact, that it will not affect the integrity of the site. So in the case of the council, it's in our role as the local planning authority. So where we are determining planning applications that will increase nutrient load, we need to ensure that there's no reasonable scientific doubt when we're considering the integrity of that protected site. And local planning authorities, we are the ultimate decision maker. But again, we're required by law to consult Natural England as part of a habitat assessment process. And we have to give Natural England's advice considerable weight. And if we want to depart from it, we have to have very clear cogent reasons and evidence to support that. Just like to remind everyone that nutrient neutrality is a legal matter. We've heard today the complex matters around nutrient pollution and how it's moving around the Somerset Levels and Malls. And I can understand why we want to have a better understanding. And we all know that that's desperately what's needed because the evidence, as Roz said, is growing and developing, but there's still lots we still don't know. So as the local planning authority, what we need to ensure is what we know is what we're giving planning commission for. We know what that nutrient loading will be from that dwelling. We know what wastewater treatment works that dwelling will feed into. So the permit limit is taken into account and that is reduced appropriately. And that is what we're offsetting. So that is our precautionary approach. And that is our beyond reasonable scientific doubt. That's the position and based on the advice that we've received from Natural England. And that's the approach that every other local planning authority are taking. So nutrient neutrality seeks to mitigate that additional load, as I've just explained, based on the permit level of that wastewater treatment works that a particular development will feed into. And the technological and nature based solutions for nutrient mitigation and calculations are approved by Natural England as the statutory body. And they've published a wealth of the work that they've had commissioned to support the nutrient mitigation projects that are moved forward. But there's also lots of stuff that's coming out in terms of new technological advancements that can be used in developments to reduce water usage and mitigate the impact of phosphorus. So the first recommendation was to remove the 20% buffer in the Somerset phosphate calculator. So again, the 20% buffer is applied in all the national calculators utilised by the 70 local planning authorities. And this is based on Natural England's advice. Whilst it's applied to what that dwelling needs to mitigate, it's built in to ensure that the mitigation measures satisfy that precautionary approach and the reasonable scientific certainty. And again, just reminding members that we have to follow the advice of Natural England. We have to give it considerable weight and we have to have very clear reasons if we want to depart from it. And at the moment, there are no cogent reasons to depart from Natural England's advice. There's lots of evidence out there that that brings things into question, but not enough to to rely on in a court of law if we were legally challenged. So the recommendation is reviewing the quantum of phosphates entering the Somerset levels and moors of the black back of the research that Dr Clegg has done on parts of the River Parrot to understand the phosphorus pollution levels and also how the water might be getting onto the Ramsar sites. So Natural England have reviewed that, and that was provided in the executive report as an appendix to their comments on Dr Clegg's research. And whilst they've thanked Dr Clegg for his research, they have raised a number of issues and advised the council that we are not able to rely on that to justify taking a changing approach. So they've questioned the hydrological connectivity, given that the Somerset levels and moors is a large flood storage area for several months of the year and that the River Parrot overtops, which will resort to the transportation of phosphates. They've highlighted questions over the sampling size, the time scale that that sampling is done and the area covered in terms of parts of the River Parrot. And of course, we've got other river catchments with the River Tone and the River Brew where that work has not been undertaken. They flagged up the impact of climate change, which changes those flow rates. And with long dry summers, it may increase phosphorus mobilisation where they have to put more water into those Ramsar sites for conservation purposes. And as we know, the water flows and movements are complex on the Somerset levels and moors. We've just heard that this morning from Shane and the water levels are controlled at different points of the year, either for flood storage in the winter, but also for conservation purposes to maintain water levels in the summer. And Dr Clegg himself acknowledges Natural England's feedback. He himself has acknowledged that further work is needed to be done and has said that his research was about informing action rather than providing a comprehensive understanding. And whilst we know that we need more expertise and more research in this area, the council does not have the internal expertise to undertake that research. We don't have the resources to commission externally. Equally, we don't have the statutory responsibility to undertake a research project of this scale and complexity. And we've just heard this morning that the research that's already been undertaken has taken two years. So if we're desperately trying to unlock housing, I'm not convinced that undertaking further research is going to help us in the short term. What I would also like to flag up is some of the research that's also been done by the Rivers Trust. So they've published a study called Mind the Evidence Gap. And what this evidence has been kind of verified by Shane's comments this morning has shown that evidence from published studies have shown that spot sampling can underestimate phosphorus pollution loads by 60 percent. And that up to 80 percent of phosphorus pollution load can enter the rivers in just two or three rainfall runoff events when you have those high rainfall events. And they've also published their State of the Rivers report this year. Again, flagging up what we already know because it's heavily covered in the media that our rivers are not in a good place. There's been further decline since their last report in 2021, and they themselves also acknowledge that more data is needed to kind of truly understand the scale of the problems, but also to understand how we deploy solutions to resolve this issue, which of course is a national issue in terms of water quality. Of course, we are caught because we have a special protection area. We have the Ramsar sites with a particular designation, and it's the habitat regulations that we're caught by in our capacity as the local planning authority. So the third recommendation was to conduct an urgent review of the entire nutrient neutrality policy in light of the legal advice. Again, just reminding us that it's not a policy, it's advice supported by case law. And the officer advice to the executive was that actually the legal advice does not support this recommendation. Seventy local planning authorities are following the same nutrient neutrality advice, including Cornwall. To date, there's been no development industry challenge on that nutrient neutrality policy advice. And the case law for mitigate is very clear that for mitigation to be lawful, it must be preventative. So it must stop any net gain in nutrients entering that special protection area. And that we need to have practical certainty, which means at this stage, local planning authorities are unable to rely on the nutrient reduction plans and strategies from the water industry. And because they don't provide the requisite certainty to eliminate reasonable scientific doubt. And because we can't control that. So they are enforced by the environment agency. They're not enforced by us as the local planning authority. And the Wessex Waters upgrades were not provided as mitigation for future development. They accommodate growth, but they don't mitigate the impact. And that's the important distinction that we need to make. And despite there being years of headroom in the flow part of Wessex Waters permit and the outperformance on the concentration, it doesn't alter the fact that for each dwelling we give planning permission, in our capacity as the local planning authority, there will be an increase in nutrients discharged to the river. And I'll explain that increase in discharges to the river with this slide, although I am aware that there are some alternative figures that are being circulated in terms of Wessex Waters' performance in the previous year, previous 12 months from June last year to now. This data has been provided to us by Wessex Water and it covers average performance of the Taunton wastewater treatment works between 2021 and 2023. So what you see here, if you put the blue and the orange together, is the current permit level for the Taunton wastewater treatment works. And the blue part of that is what the average, what it's working at or operating at as an average performance over that three year period. So the Taunton wastewater treatment works has a permit limit of one milligram of phosphates per litre. So what that means is for every litre of treated effluent that's discharged to the river in the Taunton wastewater treatment works, it cannot exceed one milligram of phosphates. And if they do exceed that limit, Wessex Water are then at risk of being fined by the Environment Agency. So as part of infrastructure planning, they will build in headroom to make sure that they're able to operate within that one milligram per litre phosphate discharge. Now the headroom there is the 0.33 based on the data that we were provided by Wessex. And that ensures they've got that headroom to accommodate growth, but not to mitigate it because each additional dwelling that we give permission for, people moving into that dwelling will have an average water usage. Again, all of this is built into the phosphate calculator when we're building in mitigation requirements. And that water usage ends up at the wastewater treatment works and increases the quantity of wastewater and sewage that's being treated. And ultimately it increases the quantity that's being discharged, but it still won't exceed that one milligram per litre of phosphates, but the quantity of phosphates increases because the quantity of litres of treated effluent increases. So just going back to this, that covers the wastewater that makes it to the sewage treatment works in Taunton. So the map that we've got here is published on the Rivers Trust. It's called their sewage map. It's the data that informs this comes from the Environment Agency's event duration monitoring. So they have these water level sensors and these are located at some of the combined sewer overflows. And what it measures is the points at which raw sewage is discharged to our watercourses. Now, this operates as part of the system. It's to prevent the backing up of sewage into homes in heavy rainfall events. But it is supposed to happen in exceptional circumstances, i.e. those high rainfall events. And what these brown dots indicate, the bigger the brown dot is, the bigger, the larger the number of hours that that combined sewer overflow has discharged in supposedly exceptional circumstances. What the Rivers Trust has flagged up is that this is happening more often than it should be in what they would class as not exceptional circumstances. I'm not going to make a judgment on that, but this is what the data indicates. You can drill into that data and you can build it down into areas if you're interested in your particular local area. But going back to the example of the Taunton wastewater treatment works where it's previously been highlighted that there is headroom in that permit. These brown dots are all the combined sewer overflows from locations that would feed into that wastewater treatment works at Taunton. And again, there's been lots of evidence to show that the issue is the capacity of the sewage network to take the additional sewage and high rainfall events, which is why these discharges are happening. And again, you can look at the number of hours. I have been asked, do we know what the quantity is that's discharged? And I've raised that question with the Environment Agency and they're not able to tell you the quantity. They can only tell you the time, the days, the number of hours, basically. And when you add these dots up, it comes to over 150 days in Taunton of continuous days of discharging of raw sewage, according to the Times. So again, this highlights that even with headroom, there are other wider issues in the network around the capacity of the sewage infrastructure. So going back to the recommendations of the committee and why the officer recommendation was too executive was that we're not able to take those forward. There is a significant risk of legal challenge if we choose to effectively ignore Natural England's advice. Somerset is not unknown to legal challenges in terms of planning decisions. South Somerset's had its local plan challenged in past history and also planning decisions challenged where the appropriate process was not followed. And the same with the amended local plan. We're currently dealing with that legal challenge and having to work on amending the local plan to accommodate that. The risk of local legal challenge is most likely to come from, I would suspect, residence action groups. Or it could be from environmental lobby groups and also potentially from the environmental credit market that's being developed out of the need for nutrient credits nationally. And we all know that there's a big national water quality debate on the various practices that we've highlighted today in the research. We've been awarded the $9.6 million for mitigation funding, and we're moving that forward, looking to deliver improvements in water quality, potentially nature recovery, flood management and public access where possible. And at the moment, there is significant delivery risk for this funding because of the limited staff resource we've got and we need to ensure that we're not regularly diverted onto other areas. Because the important thing with that funding is that whilst it's there for mitigation, longer term it can be recycled into the restoration of the Somerset levels and mores. But we've got an extremely challenging deadline to spend that money. It's got to be drawn down and committed by the 31st of March 2025. We only received the money in the February of this year. So, you know, we've got 10 months now. So it's really critical that we move forward with that. So moving on to recommendation four, which was establishing a start, a task and finish group. Again, just to remind members that Somerset Council does not have a statutory responsibility for water quality, but we are, of course, an important partner in that. And the funding, once we start to recycle that, will be an important part of working to resolve some of the issues on the Somerset levels and mores. But currently those resources are focused on delivering phosphate mitigation so we can help unlock impacted development and on focusing on the Council's statutory roles. We've got partnerships such as the Somerset Catchbook Partnership and Natural England are establishing a technical working group for the Somerset levels and mores. Longer term, the grant can be repurposed into the restoration, and that is the most appropriate time to set up a task and finish group. We have committed to doing an all member briefing prior to reporting back to the Strategic Planning Committee in September 2024, where we will provide an update on the phosphate mitigation delivery strategy and the projects and how they're progressing. So just to give an update on the interim P mitigation strategy. So we took that through the Strategic Planning Committee in March, got that approved, and we will be updating again in September 2024. In the meantime, we've been supporting the third party credit market, so we've got over 600 dwellings unlocked and many other large scale developments, and there's now P credits available to unlock four and a half thousand dwellings across Somerset. And all of those third party credits are signposted on Council's website. We've recently updated applicant guidance to help development industry understand where they need guidance. We've launched our corpus sites, so that was launched on the 20th of May. So this is looking for nature based solutions for P mitigation, but also looking for biodiversity net gain because landowners can stack those benefits. What we're keen to ensure out of this process is that we help to bring the price down, because in the early days of phosphate, well, nutrient mitigation requirements, there was a sort of desperate need to find things and possibly some of those land uses weren't the most appropriate. What we need, what our understanding is developed nationally on this is that the phosphate mitigation, the best locations are land that's waterlogged for several months of the year or may flood. So actually for in terms of land value purposes, it has its best value is for environmental credit market because for farming purposes, it's not great if it's waterlogged or floods regularly and also certainly no value in development terms if it's in that location. We're looking to stack additional public benefits such as natural flood management and public access and nature recovery. We're also working on upgrades to the council's septic tanks to PTPs, which will unlock nutrient credits. We're progressing a trial with Salinity Solutions and with Miscanthus Nursery to understand how we can deliver strategic scale temporary credits, particularly to assist small to medium sized developers. And of course, we will be updating that phosphate mitigation strategy. And once we've got strategic scale mitigation in place, we'll be able to move from a situation where developers have had to have that mitigation up front and will move more to it operating like a pre-commencement condition. So it's been a big issue up until recently where they've had to have that up front. So it's a cash flow issue for many developers. But once we move to this strategic scale of mitigation with that funding, we'll be able to look at taking planning applications through with pre-commencement conditions, which will alleviate that pressure. And obviously we're looking longer term at the recycling. So I understand there's been some questions raised about how those credits are provided. So with these projects, they will demonstrate what they're removing by way of phosphate mitigation. And we will recycle that funding through the trading of nutrient credits, much like it's been happening to date, where developers then draw down those credits to unlock their development. And the funding gets recycled in that way, ultimately longer term to go into the restoration of the Somerset levels and walls. So moving on to recommendation five, preparing a land use strategy as part of the local plan. So a land use strategy is covering many more land uses than the council itself has the statutory powers to control. It can look at carbon sequestration, food production and security, tree planting and forestry, for example. Like I say, council doesn't have statutory powers to control these land uses, but we do understand the value in potentially looking at this. The government had committed to publishing a land use framework for England by the end of 2023. As yet, that's not being published. We understand they are likely to be providing guidance. But obviously with the election period, that's likely to be delayed. At the moment, the limited staff resource we've got is focused on progressing the local plan, which is the statutory function of the council. And we need to have that plan in place by 2028 in terms of the legal requirements. And the land use framework will be something that can be considered once government guidance is published, obviously subject to resource constraints. Thank you, Chair. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you, Kate. That was a thorough and obviously a time consuming report you put together. But it was essential because I think the concerns around this room and in this committee were genuine and long thought out. And I know it's an issue that I've been involved in and I've been lobbied about for a long time. So thank you for that. And Mike Rigby's question, I believe, is forthcoming. Thank you, Chair. And my apologies to those of you who heard me say this before, but it gives me no pleasure to have to keep repeating it. But here we go. There are two key issues here. Firstly, most fundamentally, West Leach Water has, through vast investment in infrastructure, stripped out far more phosphate than required by the Environmental Regulator. I'll say that again. It's their words, not mine. Far more phosphate than required by the Environmental Regulator. Why have they done this? Because Somerset Council's told West Leach Water how many houses were in their local plans and they invested accordingly. That should not come as a shock. It's how the system is supposed to work. And it would be bizarre if it operated any differently. This is the issue, the concept of headroom. Our policy assumes that there is no headroom and that is the basis on which our legal advice was provided. The problem is that the legal advice was based on inaccurate information provided to the council's KC. We told him that there was no headroom. The problem is that that view is not backed by West Leach Water, which specifically invested in excess phosphate stripping capability over and above that required by the regulator specifically to address population growth. The data on headroom that we gave to our KC was claimed to have been supplied by West Leach Water, but in the context in which it was presented to our KC, West Leach Water do not recognise it. We've heard today that Taunton Wastewater Treatment Works is currently discharging at 0.67 milligrams per litre and that limits the headroom. That is inaccurate. It is currently discharging at 0.29 milligrams per litre, providing much greater headroom. We appear to be wedded to old data in order to support a policy whose basis is crumbling. I've no doubt that were our KC to be furnished with accurate information, agreed with West Leach Water, he would reach the opposite conclusion to the one that he did. The legal advice is indeed unsound, as Mr Rawls says. Secondly, the calculator that we used to work out how much phosphate needs to be offset per house is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that all of the phosphate discharged from new homes in the catchment makes it onto the protective levels of moors. We know that it doesn't. Uniquely among the other 70 affected areas, Somerset is a man-made environment. The rivers are largely levied and the water that they contain, including treated and untreated effluent, shoots straight out to sea. It never touches the levels, which sit in glorious isolation below the level of the rivers. The exceptions to this are during dry summers when minuscule amounts of water are allowed to flow out of the rivers in order to boost low flows on the levels. And also in those winters when heavily diluted rain river water will carry some phosphate as it floods down the spillways. Testing following flood events shows no resulting spike in phosphates, which is a strong indicator that the diluted water is carrying minimal phosphates onto the levels even during major flood events. Initial investigation suggests that perhaps 1.5% of the river-borne phosphate makes its way onto the levels of moors. Yet we assume in our calculator that 100% of the effluent from new homes gets to the levels of moors, ignoring the fact that the rivers flow past the levels and ignoring the modernised treatment works in between. 93% of the incoming phosphate at Taunton's wastewater treatment works is caught and removed before discharge into the tow. And to make the situation worse, we slap a 20% buffer on top of our faulty calculator for good measure. Natural England has agreed that sometimes water does flow onto the Somerset levels of moors. This is a tacit acknowledgement by Natural England that not all of the water and therefore the phosphates in the river system makes it onto the levels of moors. We assume in our calculator that 120% of the phosphates from a new home makes it onto the levels of moors. It doesn't and even Natural England acknowledge this. In reality it's probably less than 1%. The 120% we're using is a gross exaggeration and is a great example of the cogent reasoning required to deviate from the Natural England advice. Dr Clegg has estimated that 1.5% of river phosphate makes its way onto the levels of moors. Natural England has said that cannot be relied upon but they offer up no figure in alternative. Councillor Hobbs has raised yesterday the salient example of what's recently been announced by Natural England in respect of Poole Harbour. Here Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council heavily lobbied for improved pee stripping at their wastewater treatment works. Natural England has now, on a promise of future phosphate stripping, lifted its phosphates advice. Different policy and how councils respond to the Natural England advice most certainly is a policy. Different policy, better outcome. Here in Somerset not only do we have a promise of more phosphate stripping but a recent history of upgrades by Wessex Water, now removing 160 tonnes of phosphates every year. And remember the entirety of the stranded housing, 18,000 homes, would produce just 3 tonnes of phosphate per year. There remain major factual uncertainties around the legal advice that we've received and about the efficacy of our calculator and these are the issues that the task and finish group that we voted for at the last meeting needs to address. I wonder if we could perhaps have an update on progress with establishing that task and finish group please. Thank you Mike. First of all I'm going to ask if any of the officers want to come back on those points? Kate, possibly? Yeah, thank you. So again the headroom exists on many wastewater treatment works all over the country in the same locations impacted by nutrient neutrality as do we. It's there, it's part of wastewater treatment works infrastructure planning. But it's been very clear that we can't rely on that headroom because with each additional dwelling that we're giving permission for, the water usage increases and the treated effluent that's discharged increases. The quantity of phosphates in each litre doesn't get exceeded but the overall quantity of phosphates does increase. We've always said that if there is clear evidence to take a different approach we will consider it and we have done already. We were asked to look at the Cornwall situation, we considered that and looked at how different it was in Cornwall compared to Somerset. We've looked at the Wiltshire scenario again and explained why that doesn't apply in this case and actually Wiltshire has now changed its approach and is following the same approach that Somerset has. And in terms of clear evidence, there isn't any clear evidence to suggest how much water or how much phosphates actually enters the Ramsar site. So at the moment, the precautionary approach and beyond reasonable scientific doubt is the approach we have to take, which is why we mitigate for what is generated by each additional dwelling that we're giving permission for. And the criticisms of the Somerset phosphate calculator apply nationally. They're the same indicators that go into the national phosphate nutrient calculators. And the situation with Paul Harbour, we will look to understand how they managed to get those improvements and the lobbying that they did to get that done. And we've got discussions with Dorset Council later on today and I understand Natural England has already responded on how those were lifted. But at the moment, without clear evidence that would stand up, and you've got to remember it's got to stand up in a court, in law, in court, if we were challenged. That's the evidence that we need to rely on. And at this point, there is no evidence on which we can rely. But we've always said if that evidence is being provided, we will, of course, consider it as we have done with every other situation. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. I think in response to your question, Mike, about the task and finish group, I would sort of remind those assemblies actually within the remit of this committee to decide whether it wants a task and finish group. I don't believe it's in the remit of the executive to decide whether we can have one or not. But I think it's a wise move to listen to the evidence that went forward to the executive and to decide on what remit we want to have in that task and finish group if we want to continue with it. Yes. Indeed, Chair, it is in the remit of this group. It requires not the authorisation of the executive to hold a task and finish group. We voted unanimously at the last meeting to hold on, to set one up. So that's what we're doing. I guess the issues at hand are what the remit of that is. And I think what was supposed to have happened is that that was supposed to have been decided between the last meeting and this one that hasn't happened. But I hope that we can move on quickly now and make sure that that remit is the remit and scope is decided between this meeting and the next one. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I will endeavour to follow that up. And by no means is it an excuse. We have to ensure that we have staffing. I have to know who I'm talking to and talking with. I think it's as simple as I can put it. Other questions? Come on, we don't want to. Oh, you've got one, Dixie. That's worked. It's not a question, it's a comment. I kind of would have liked to have heard from some other Scrutiny members, actually, because I've heard quite a lot from Councillor Hoghouse and Councillor Rigby on this. So I'm kind of wondering where other people are. I think what I would just like to say is that as an exec member, I take the whole Scrutiny process very seriously. I take Scrutiny recommendations very seriously. I've heard a lot of kind of conflicting argument and evidence. I voted yesterday, along with other executive members, to support the case that Cated represented. I want to really emphasise that we are open minded to this. If there is different legal advice that comes out, I am as keen as anyone to lift this restriction, which is an absolute nightmare. That has to be balanced with risk to the council. So, you know, this is not about shutting down opportunities, it's ensuring that we have the right route forward. And I know that there are different opinions and not everyone in this room will agree with me. That's kind of the dilemma that an exec member has. And I do, I am very grateful for your kind of time and energy on this. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll come back to you, Richard. I'll come in, but Dave Mansell's had his hand up online for a while. Yes, thank you. If the slides could be taken down for those of us online, it's nice to be able to see what's going on in the room. And at the moment, all we see is thank you and questions. Thank you for that. I'm sort of sitting here thinking there's an awful lot to to digest. I'll make a few points about trying to keep brief as well and come to some sort of conclusion. I mean, it's been really interesting all that we've had to you know, all that we've heard here. And I think these have been important and good evidence sessions that we've that we've had from everybody that we've we've heard from. I've also got I will say I do have sympathy with the officer position, and I think it was important that we heard the presentation today, and I did catch up with it yesterday afternoon. But, you know, we do need to listen to what officers are saying, and they are making some important points and precautionary approach. You know, on the whole, that that's something I I strongly support when it comes to protecting the environment. However, I do have sort of some worries about how some of this has gone, and I will note that we really struggled to get these evidence sessions set up. We had to request as a committee several times that I don't quite know what was going on, but there was resistance to having these meetings set up. And that that troubles me. Something else that troubles me a bit was that we were getting this steer not to look at nutrient neutrality and, you know, quite where it was coming from. But that's been said, it's repeated right at the start of the executive report. And I just don't think that sort of steer is quite right. And that's led to some of the you know, because some of this is challenging and we're trying to work our way through it. And in that regard, I do think it's important that I looked at the constitution before this meeting because it was troubling me before. And it does say the constitution said scrutiny is to be a councilor led and owned function. This is our scrutiny committee. And if we have things we think important to look at, I'm sure we're going to not do things previously without good reason. And this is an important thing. And also in the constitution, it says that we can make reports and recommendations not only regarding our own council, but regarding partner bodies as well. And we can scrutinize the performance of other bodies. And I just wonder whether that's part of the way forward on this, that we maybe we have focused too much on what the council should be doing and the executive. And there is something there. And I'm not saying we let go of that, but maybe we should be directing some of our comments to others, maybe especially Natural England, but maybe others too. And so I think that's something we should keep in mind in what we do. So coming to a conclusion, and I think what we're focusing on now is the task and finish group. And I'm a member of this committee, although only online with you today. But yeah, I support that task and finish group being set up. And I think from the evidence we've heard, it could perform a useful function both with what the council does, but also I would suggest looking at partner bodies as well. But in terms of reference, it should be coming back to the next meeting, as I think it's saying, and I hope that will be included. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. I'm very happy with that. And I would like to add that it would incredibly difficult to have this debate, this discussion, without discussing neutrality. You can't really extract it from the debate. And that has been an issue. I think that we're, I'm going to ask one more question before I go on, because there's other people in the room probably want to speak. Richard, did you want to say something? Yeah. I'm just going to go back to the statement from David Orr at the beginning. And the one thing I did agree with him about was that planning offices are not supposed to be phosphate experts. And although I believe Kate has become very much a phosphate expert, but we do bow to the technical ability of people like Councillor Hobhouse in the science of phosphates and also all the people that have brought reports to us. What our planning officers are or do or have to do is look at things from a risk management point of view. And actually, the conflation between nutrient neutrality, if you like, and house building wasn't something that Somerset Council put together. This was something that was brought to us from various groups for various reasons. I won't go into it. But it's quite clear that as a council, we have a duty to our constituents. And the risk management side of that is something that we take very, very seriously. And I will say it again. I said it at the executive meeting yesterday. I don't understand if everything that has been brought to us, why the people that have most to gain on this and have the deepest pockets have not brought this to a judicial situation, which is the builders, the developers. And that is why I believe we made the right decision in the executive yesterday. And I know it's possibly unpopular, but why haven't they brought it? They've got the deep pockets. And I think you'll find it's because of it's because of everything that's been said. But it is a moving this is a moving feast. It's quite clearly a moving face. And I think things will be unlocked in time. But I believe if we go down the route that has been suggested. At times, we will not be unlocking. The housing issue in Somerset will be causing more issues for ourselves and get caught up in some very difficult legal arguments. That's why I voted the way I did at the executive statement on the question. Is there anybody who wants to respond to it? Well, could make statements. Yeah. Yes. I wasn't really responding to Councillor Wilkins, but to the some of the questions or comments from from Councillor Mansell. So I mean, I support I mean, hopefully the actions of this committee in the office of support and actually convening those partners to come rather than the kind of words about what they're expressed about. It is what I'd like the committee to take away. I'd remind the committee that we don't have any powers to compel those other organisations to come to hold them to account. But in a complex issue where it reflects our convening role in a local area, I think it is important we'll continue to do so. I'll repeat the words that are in the in the recommendation around the task and finish group that we will seek to work with scrutiny and due course to establish a task and finish group. So to focus on the restoration of Somerset levels and moors, I won't go repeat it in full. And that commitment remains. We're obviously very keen to meet with the vice chair to follow up on that and do it in a way which does reflect the scarce resources we have and therefore appropriate timing and allocation of those resources. But that commitment is absolutely there. And I think Councillor Mansell highlighted in his comments earlier in the meeting of kind of what we're saying in what is said in the executive report that actually there is a lack of clarity on the purpose of that task and finish group, and therefore, there is a need for that further conversation. And just to reiterate, I think Kate has put it more eloquently than me. We didn't say last time that we weren't that a reluctance to discuss neutrality. That was a meeting particularly focused on the water quality, which is not our statutory responsibility. Thank you very much, Mickey. Henry. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I just want to highlight. You tell me probably the right thing to do. I just want to highlight a number of things. The first is the habitat regulations, which make it absolutely clear that this council is the lead authority. Natural England is but our advisors, and we cannot ignore them. And please don't use that word. We have to take their advice extremely seriously and actually give a very good reason why we're not going to take it. And I fully accept that. My problem is that both Wessex Water and Lancaster are actually doing work on the river catchment. Nobody is working on the levels, and I repeat, we are here to look at the levels, and we have no scientific work being done, apart from Andrew Clegg. And there is nobody else at all. The second thing is that, and I'm going to repeat what I said yesterday, on the river Cam, we have two small sewage farms which have deposited sewage into the Cam on an average of one time a day. That's 122 deposits into the Cam. The Cam flows into the Yow. The Yow flows into the Parrot. And in the winter, the Parrot, unless it overspills, and it hasn't overspilled since January unless somebody wants to correct me, all of that sewage went straight past West Sedgemoor and all the rest. Go on, Benji. Please just continue. All I wanted to say was, after you finished speaking, that I fully agree with what you're saying, and this here is so confusing to sit here and listen to how we are being almost gagged not to say anything. Not by any members here, but that the bigger authority has got all the rights. Thank you. Okay. Nine months, sorry, 12 months ago now, this committee asked for a special meeting that we were going to address these subjects in June in 2023. We were completely stopped the whole way through the summer. Jamie had an enormous amount of pressure put on him by outside forces. We eventually ended up with a private non-public meeting in October. And when we finally got a full-blown meeting, I think you were going to be very, very lucky to hold it to water quality. Because the problem that we have as members being put through for over a year is going to come to a head, and it came to a head on the 25th of April. One thing I'd like to make sure that you do is please don't spend the money on the miscances people. Please go to Thwag. They are doing puddy culture. In other words, what you can grow on wet levels in two places on the moors. I can't tell you where Mr Bradford is. I've already been made to look very silly, but there are two things going on as we speak. And the money would be better spent with them than starting again. If you want to look at miscances, the farm next door to me grows six acres a year and harvest it and burn it. If you want to, it's up to you. Thank you. Further comments, response? Kate, thank you. So we're looking at a range of different mitigation measures and lots of the other local authorities are trialling other measures as well. And we will learn from the other local authorities impacted by nutrient neutrality. So there's some water flow control measures going on, some properties that we're looking to learn from. There's electro coagulation and there are other potential crops, as I understand it, and potential different approaches to applying fertilizer. So there's lots of other measures that we'll be learning from from other areas. The Miscanthus trial is one that we will be looking at. Just because it's got another opportunity and there's been some research done in the States that shows that it's good at sucking up legacy phosphates. Obviously, what you do with the Miscanthus crop in terms of either using it for bio-NG or the alternative at the moment the Miscanthus are looking at is recyclable food packaging. So it's locking away both the phosphates and the carbon within that food packaging. But there's there's lots of other things that local authorities are looking at and we will learn from that. I think the important thing for us, and I understand this is complex, is where we're looking at water quality. Officers aren't trying to gag people, Councillor Hite. But we need to make the distinction between the restoration of the Somerset Levels of Moors, which we've all heard today. There's a two year research project that's been going on. There's lots of research with the flag and we know about that, the polluter culture one. But we can't do that, Henry, because that's downstream of some of the Ramsar sites. The mitigation has to happen upstream of the Ramsar sites. But we can look at the learning from that and see if we can implement some of that upstream. We absolutely will. And we are aware of that work that's going on. And we have worked closely with the flag to understand what other research projects they're doing. But we do need to make this distinction between the Somerset Levels of Moors. Don't forget, we've got another special protection area, which is the River Axe, which is impacting a small part of South Somerset. But again, where planning applications come forward there, we need to make sure that mitigation is in place for the River Axe that feeds into East Devon. It's the impact of those special protection areas that we need to mitigate. And there is a distinction between nutrient neutrality and the extensive research and knowledge that needs to happen to understand how we restore these. And we've heard before from Professor Penny Johns, we've heard today from Shane Rothwell, that this is an incredibly complex issue nationally, impacting not just Somerset, impacting the Norfolk Broads, the Lake District, the River Wye, the River Avon, Paul Harbour. So there's lots of other research going on nationally and people are learning. And Rich is absolutely right, they claim to be a phosphate expert. What we're advising is in making planning decisions that we're following appropriate process. So the council isn't put at significant financial, legal risk and reputational risk of not following the legal advice of and the advice from Natural England on how we move forward to give planning permission, still fulfil our statutory duty without putting ourselves at financial and legal risk. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, it's now twenty past twelve and we really need to be out of this room half past twelve. Therefore, I made the decision and I do apologise to Mike, although I think it's a technical problem anyway, that we probably have to postpone the war to serve. Thank you for sitting with us for this period of time. It must have been immensely entertaining for you. And the items for information, I think we're going to have to postpone till the next meeting. I'm not really surprised. This issue is extremely important. And let's see if Alan can come up with something. And then I've got desolation online and that might be it. And then I have to try and summarise. OK, thank you. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'm just going to say there's so many different wars and they all got the different issues and different civil types. We all know that. Henry, Henry knows that very well. Right. And Natural England have always been a big player in this, in the past and in the future. And I'm going to say I'm not sure they're always right. That's all I'm going to say. And you asked individual farmers on a lot of these things and we go back with a bit of history. And it's such a complex issue. It really, really is. And to please everybody, well, you know, none of us are God. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Thank you. And I think I think you made a very important point there and I'll come back to it later. Let's go on to Liz. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make the point I'm not sure that anyone else has that I would ask you as chair and your vice chair and committee to consider the situation for all staff of the council at the moment. As we're going through a major restructure and it may not be possible to complete work that would be possible at an easier time. So I just ask for your forbearance, please, with the staff and to take any requests through the Democratic Services staffing, so that we're not asking anything that may be deemed unreasonable at a time when staff are already experiencing stress and additional work. Thank you very much. Thank you, Liz. Well, I'm going to attempt to summarise here and ask for some questions here. First, I think much of this meeting has been about questioning the advice of Natural England, who seem to be helping to determine this issue throughout the country. I accept that this is a very difficult issue. I accept that going against their advice is dangerous, possibly from a legal point of view. But at the same time, we had enough voices in this room that persuaded me that Natural England's advice may not be as good as it should be. Or up to date as it should be. We have established at the last meeting we wanted a task and finish group. I think Dave Mansell is the chair of that. Is that right? Nobody is at the moment. We've got the names, haven't we? What I'd like to suggest, are you on that, Henry? Yeah. What I'd like to suggest then from Henry is that task and finish group arranges to meet together to discuss where they think they can take this debate. I'm not asking for officers to be present at that meeting or set that meeting up. I would like you to decide in that group where you think you can constructively take this debate forward, if you can. And then when you've come to a conclusion as to what you'd like to do, I'm sure I don't need to say this, there's no point in going over the same ground. I fully understand the frustrations of how long it's taken to get this meeting together. And I think if we could have had a full and frank discussion on this a year ago or whenever it was ten months ago, we probably wouldn't be in a situation where there appears to be quite so much antagonism in the room. So I'm taking away, I'm thanking everybody for their contributions and thank the officers for what they brought back to us and the executive for considering it at great length. I think the task and finish group does have a purpose, could have a purpose. It's up to them to decide what that might be. But I urge them not to reconsider the issues that we've gone over and it might take, I might steer it towards, if you accept this, the view that how do we influence outside bodies? Anybody got to come back on that? Dave looks like he has, Dave looks like he's itching to speak. Yeah, OK, thank you. I don't believe we have set this task and finish group up yet. I missed it if we did. I believe the next step is to set the task and finish group up. And for my money, if it does largely involve councillors, members with little member, with little officer support, that should be accepted. Whatever comes out of the task and finish group, though, must be presented. We must hear what officers have to say about it before it's finalised. I think that would be important. Could I suggest, I think what needs to happen is that a report needs to come to the next meeting with terms of reference for the task and finish group and setting it up. But perhaps if a couple of members, maybe Henry and Mike, were interested in drafting some terms of reference to bring to the next meeting, that that would be a good way forward. Dave, thank you. I'm getting confused with the other task and finish group that you are chairing. I'm very sorry. It's getting the time is getting on the electricity one. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, Mike, thank you. I just wanted to point out that the process by which task and finish groups are established is very nicely and clearly set out in Part G of the council's constitution. It answers the points that Councillor Mansell has made about the process by which they're set up, about how the scoping is to come back to the next meeting and all the rest of it. And absolutely very much the documents need to take account of all viewpoints and need to be, the final document that's produced needs to go to the director. Thank you. Okay. Well, taking that on board, then we will communicate with you through me to decide on who's going to be on that task and finish group. And then we will defer to the task and finish group. Thank you for that. Mr Chairman, can I suggest we get the members at the same time at the next meeting when we set what we're actually looking at? Yes. Okay. Okay. Any further comments? Right. Apologies to those that waited for the final two items on the agenda. And thank you very much for coming. Thank you for being online and we'll reconvene at the next meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Bye to you. [ Silence ]