About the Solent Nutrient Market Pilot
The Solent area, like several other water catchments in England, is suffering from excess nutrient pollution, which is having adverse impacts on our internationally important wildlife habitats. This has led to challenges for new housing development as Natural England has advised that such developments should demonstrate ‘nutrient neutrality’; i.e. zero net impact by nitrogen pollution on the protected sites.
The Solent Nutrient Market Pilot is testing the use of an online nutrient trading platform to:
- support landowners to make long-term land-use changes in the Test and Itchen Catchment that reduce nitrogen pollution and deliver wider environmental benefits; and
- enable new developments to meet the requirement to deliver nutrient neutrality on protected sites.
The design and development of the trading process and platform (previously referred to as the Solent Trading Platform) is being funded by Defra.
You can find out more about the Solent Nutrient Market Pilot by visiting its website here.
The latest update on the progress of the Solent Nutrient Market Pilot (December 2021) is attached below:
Solent Nutrient Market Update December 2021