A number of farmers have won appeals against Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) designations for their businesses and these are having a positive impact on all farms in that same drainage area, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

With more than 50 per cent of the 100-plus decisions notified to date seeing successful appeals against NVZ designation, the NFU is pleased with the progress made so far.

NFU head of policy services Andrew Clark said the positive results achieved so far could have far wider-reaching implications than just for the individual farmer who first appealed.

Clark 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 hundreds of thousands 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.”

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