Environmental Permitting

When is an environmental permit needed?

The Environment Agency require you to have an environmental permit if you wish to do an activity that could:

Pollute the air, water or land
Increase flood risk
Adversely affect land drainage

Consents to Discharge

In some cases, where there are no public sewer services, it is necessary to provide sewerage disposal using private systems such as cesspools, soakaways and private treatment plants. In order to protect water quality, permits are required if you wish to discharge any drainage to surface waterbodies, such as rivers or streams, or if you require discharge — directly or indirectly — to groundwater.

We can provide advice on the type of treatment to be used and obtain from the Environment Agency the necessary consents to discharge the treated effluent where necessary.

River channel works requiring environmental permits at Bicester, Oxfordshire

Flood Risk Consents

You will also require an environmental permit if you wish to do work on or near a main river, within a floodplain or near a flood defence structure. This is regulated under environmental permits and was formerly known as Flood Defence Consent. National guidance specifies that any works within 8 metres of the riverbank (or within 16 metres of a flood defence) requires consent, although this distance varies in accordance with local byelaws.

Water Environment are able to offer advice on all aspects of flood risk and drainage permitting and can make this application on your behalf.

Permits, licences and consents we handle

Flood Risk Activity Permits — for works on or near a main river, floodplain or flood defence
Discharge permits — for discharges to surface water or groundwater
Land spreading licences — for the beneficial spreading of materials to land
Abstraction licences — for taking water from a watercourse, groundwater or other source
Ordinary Watercourse Consents — for works affecting ordinary watercourses, regulated by the Lead Local Flood Authority or Internal Drainage Board

How we work

Permit review — we identify which permits, licences and consents your activity requires and the evidence each one needs.
Supporting assessment — we prepare the technical case, from flood risk and hydraulic modelling to discharge and water quality assessment, that the application depends on.
Application — we complete and submit the application to the Environment Agency, Lead Local Flood Authority or Internal Drainage Board on your behalf.
Determination — we manage the regulator's queries through to the grant of the permit or consent.

Why Water Environment?

Most water-related permits stand or fall on the flood risk, hydraulic modelling and drainage evidence behind them — which is exactly what we produce. Because we prepare both the supporting assessment and the application, we can resolve the technical questions a regulator raises rather than passing them back to another consultant. We make applications to the Environment Agency, Lead Local Flood Authorities and Internal Drainage Boards across all of England and Wales.

We are members of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) and hold professional qualifications with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).