{"id":632668,"date":"2026-06-11T07:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632668\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:46:08","slug":"somerset-council-warns-pollution-rules-are-raising-new-home-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/632668\/","title":{"rendered":"Somerset council warns pollution rules are raising new home costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In recent years Wessex Water has made considerable improvements to Somerset&#8217;s sewage system, reducing the risk of overflows causing phospate pollution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The councillor responsible for housing delivery in the county argues the rules have not kept pace with those changes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mike Rigby described the restrictions as &#8220;a sledgehammer to crack a nut&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Which is why the councillor tasked with getting houses built in the county regards the rules as &#8220;a sledgehammer to crack a nut&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s incredibly frustrating,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Housing is having a much smaller impact than it ever has done, but we&#8217;re still saddled with these rules.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government has raised the housebuilding target for Somerset to 75,000 homes over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In recent years Wessex Water has made considerable improvements to Somerset&#8217;s sewage system, reducing the risk of overflows&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-632668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}