We are pleased to announce that the Norfolk Rivers Consortium Ltd has found a new working partner in the Broads Society who have been active in the region as “the Voice for the Broads” for the last 70 years. It is a non-governmental, voluntary organization dedicated to conserving and enhancing the Norfolk Broads.
Norfolk Rivers has donated £25,000 to date with more being donated in the near future. Norfolk Rivers also is offering help from our diverse team of Civil and Environmental Engineers including a specialist water treatment engineer (MSc Environmental Eng, MSc Water Management, PhD waste water treatment).
We strongly believe that our work in providing mitigation for builders and developers by creating credits elsewhere within the river catchment to enable new homes to be built locally, should only be “holding the line” as it were, hence the term Nutrient Neutrality, or Neutral. We are not mandated or expected to provide a net gain as can be plainly understood from planning regulations and direction from Natural England. This is unlike the requirement for Biodiversity for new building and development criteria, where not only holding the line is required, but furthermore, giving a 10% gain in addition. This has been proven to put a heavy toll on developers affected and has delayed and indefinitely postponed many developments because of the high cost of achieving nutrient neutrality.
Hence, we have provided all our donations from our trading profit, and not from our costs. We know that builders and developers are paying a heavy price for the credits and are already struggling with the current market conditions. And since this is where the funding ultimately comes from, we believe passionately that the cost to developers should be minimised, hence our donations are from our year end company profit.
As the Broads Society are a small group of dedicated ambitious individuals, we know that every single penny will be put to good use. Watch this space for more exciting news soon on the up and coming, “Broads Guardians”!