16 November 2009
Farmers, backed by the NFU, are winning successful appeals against Nitrate Vulnerable Zone designations for their businesses which are having a positive impact for all farms in the same drainage area.
With an appeals success rate of 50% for the 100-plus decisions to date, the NFU is keen to spread the word that these favourable results could mean some farmers no longer need to build slurry storage - despite not actually appealing against their designation decision themselves.
NFU Head of Policy Services Andrew Clark said the positive results achieved so far could have wider reaching implications.
He said: "Where the classification of a river as 'polluted' by nitrate has been successfully challenged, all farmers with land draining into that part of the river will be removed from the NVZ regardless of whether or not they appealed.
"This means farms falling within areas where land is successfully removed from a NVZ will no longer need to meet the stringent requirements in the NVZ Action programme, including the minimum slurry storage obligation - saving some farmers £100,000s of pounds.
"Farmers who are about to commit to building such storage should keep an eye on the emerging NVZ appeal results to see if they are still necessary. The NFU has supported many members who have appealed through assistance from regional offices and NFU HQ. By providing a number of templates for different types of appeal these have resulted in considerable success."
Appeal results will appear on NFU Online. Decisions on all 600 appeals are expected to have been taken by the end of the year. For decisions to November 8, click here. For further Defra information and NVZ maps, click here.
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