Greenpeace Ruling Exposes UK Government Policy
March 3, 2025
In January 2025, Greenpeace brought a collective action against the Dutch state for failing to comply with a 2018 European Court of Justice ruling on nutrient neutrality. An appeal is expected: however, as the UK Government has adopted the same ‘tax builders for pollution others cause’ approach to reducing nutrient pollution, it may find itself needing to reassess its strategy if it is to escape legal action.
Richard Beresford, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said:
“Labour inherited a disastrous ‘blame builders’ policy by the last government, which flirted with reversing their approach, but prioritised their party over growth and fairness by choosing to tax developers to mitigate pollution cause by agriculture and water waste companies. The Netherlands has exposed this approach as flawed, something industry has been warning Government about since 2019, because pollution in protected habitats has not improved.”
The UK Government chose to replicate the Netherland’s model of taxing the development industry by forcing them to purchase local mitigation credits to offset the impact of new developments. Unfortunately, in many areas, these credits remain unavailable and even when this meant housebuilding was banned, water quality often worsened.
Rico Wojtulewicz, Head of Policy and Market Insight, added:
“New housing accounts for less than 1% of nutrient pollution, and that pollution comes from occupants, who already pay water companies to clean up their waste. The only solution is to help farmers pollute less, since they contribute up to 75% of it, and ensure water companies are held accountable by requiring them to deliver infrastructure, such as treatment works, and using emergency planning powers to support these projects.
Blaming builders has only worsened the quality of watercourses. For example, despite no new housing being built near the River Lugg, pollution levels have still increased. Water companies continue to escape accountability by using a developer tax to deliver solutions such as wetlands, while existing waterways continue to be polluted. Meanwhile, the credit mitigation system has seen SME builders hit the hardest, projects ended due to a lack of credit availability, and UK food security reduced through loss of farmland in order to create mitigation credits.
This perverse six-year experiment must end, not just for the sake of growth, but for the health of the UK’s environment.”
You May Also Enjoy
Planning reform alone will not fix the UK’s housing crisis
Propertymark has published a new position paper, Meeting UK house demand, moving beyond the planning system, warning that focusing solely on reforming the planning system will not deliver the number of homes the UK urgently needs. While planning reform is frequently cited as the primary solution to the housing shortage, Propertymark’s analysis shows that changes…
Read More 
One in three mortgage hunting FTBs has at least 25% deposit
While higher loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages dominate first-time buyer demand a significant minority are seeking higher deposit deals, fresh data from Moneyfactscompare.co.uk can reveal. Of those looking for fixed term deals on moneyfactscompare.co.uk: Almost one in three (30%) first-time buyers are opting for 90% LTV mortgages, and a further 12% are looking at 95% LTV options. This…
Read More 
Nationwide House Price Index for January 2026 – Industry Reaction
Nationwide House Price Index for January 2026. The latest index shows that: House prices increased by 0.3% between December 2025 and January 2026. This reversed the -0.4% monthly decline seen between November and December of last year. Annual growth sat at 1% in January 2026, with this annual rate of growth increasing from 0.6% in…
Read More 
House price growth edges higher in January
Slight rise in annual house price growth to 1.0% House prices were up 0.3% month on month Continued improvement in affordability helped drive first-time buyer activity in 2025 Headlines Jan-26 Dec-25 Monthly Index* 544.9 543.4 Monthly Change* 0.3% -0.4% Annual Change 1.0% 0.6% Average Price (not seasonally adjusted) £270,873 £271,068 * Seasonally adjusted figure (note…
Read More 
Housebuilding sector shows early signs of recovery
The latest Barclays Business Prosperity Index report1 reveals that despite affordability pressures, regulatory challenges and financial caution, four in five businesses (83 per cent) operating in housebuilding and its supply chains remain confident about their outlook for the year ahead. Barclays’ anonymised client data from around 70,000 UK businesses, combined with research from 500 industry…
Read More 
Rightmove launches major updates to its agent qualification CELA
Rightmove’s Level 3 Certificate for Estate and Letting Agents (CELA) will include a new module on Renters’ Rights from April, helping agents to get Renters’ Rights ready before May The Level 3 Certificate for Estate and Letting Agents is included as standard within all Rightmove memberships, with only a fee to the exam board to…
Read More