Council-owned nutrient credit company appoints managing director
A council-owned nutrient credit company has appointed its first managing director.
Stour Environmental Credits Ltd (SEC), a joint venture company created by Ashford Borough Council and Canterbury City Council, has appointed Mariam Bajulaiye as its first managing director.
Ms Bajulaiye is a fellow of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management with more than 17 years of experience delivering waste and resource efficiency projects.
She will be working with the SEC board to unlock the development of homes in the River Stour catchment, by finalising its action plan to buy the benefit of nutrient mitigation and sell on as credits to developers.
SEC was founded after high levels of phosphates and nitrates in the River Stour catchment was impacting the Stodmarsh nature reserve further downstream, stopping developers and councils, including Ashford and Canterbury, from building new homes in line with the local plan and new housing provision.
A total of 74 planning authorities across England have paused housebuilding since May 2022 because of high levels of nitrates and phosphates in wetland areas, which are killing the invertebrates eaten by protected birds.
At the time, a report to Ashford Borough Council’s Cabinet warned that the nutrient neutrality constraints in the River Stour catchment was presenting a "huge barrier" to growth and to addressing the wider social and economic challenges, and a solution which met local requirements without creating further uncertainty was needed.
The not-for-profit company will begin trading credits later this year, and it is collaborating with local planning teams at Ashford Borough Council and Canterbury City Council to market initial credits, which is planned to become available in tranches.
SEC’s website is also being developed so that organisations can register their interest in nutrient neutrality mitigation online.
It is liaising with potential mitigation providers on the technical and legal information required to secure mitigation for credit provision, and satisfy Natural England, the Environment Agency, the local planning authorities and SEC itself, of the efficacy and longevity of the credits.
This will enable developers to have full confidence in SEC’s temporary and permanent credits which it is providing for sale.
This comes after successful soft market testing in January and February 2025, in which SEC gauged potential credit generating opportunities.
SEC is tapping into some of the £9.8m of the local nutrient mitigation funding, awarded to the catchment by the government and controlled by Kent County Council.
Ms Bajulaiye said: “We look forward to working with mitigation providers and housing developers to enable thousands of much-needed new homes to be delivered across the River Stour catchment area.”
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