Water Abstraction: Licensing

(asked on 18th July 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that abstraction licence holders are given adequate time to adapt when their licences are (a) modified and (b) revoked.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 8th September 2023

The Environment Agency makes changes to abstraction licences to achieve environmentally sustainable levels of abstraction to meet its legal duties and the Government’s environmental ambitions. If a change to an abstraction licence is required to make it environmentally sustainable, the Environment Agency recognises that abstractors need time to adapt to this change. Accordingly, the Environment Agency writes to abstractors to warn them that their licences may need to change in the future with further detail to follow once it has completed its review of the licences. Additionally, the Environment Agency has said it will give abstractors time to adapt to any licence changes on a case-by-case basis depending on the environmental risks.

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