The Environment Agency are holding a consultation on the proposals for new and amended standard rules for flood risk activities. The consultation is part of a review of their charges for regulatory work, and aims to assess what changes can be made to process more permit applications with the standard rules route.
The proposals affect permission for carrying out works on or near a main river, flood defence structure, culvert, remote defence or sea defence or on a flood plain in England. Whilst these permissions used to take the form of a flood defence consent, from April 2016 some works were either excluded or made exempt from permitting, and some came under new standard rules permits, all being allowed provided certain conditions were met. For other works, you could still apply for a bespoke permit. Along with this, new charges for flood risk activity permits were introduced.
In 2017/18 there was a strategic review of charges for regulatory works, and in April 2018, flood risk activity permitting was moved to a tiered approach to better reflect the cost of undertaking the work, which raised the cost of permits for higher risk activities. During the review, stakeholders consulted on the proposals and fed back concerns over the standard rules permits, the activity types that were included in these permits, and the conditions attached to them.
The concerns were unable to be addressed during the consultation, which has resulted in this consultation as part of the 2018/19 review.
The consultation closes on the 11th January 2019.
