EA revises environmental permit guidance suite

The Environment Agency (EA) has published a suite of revised and updated guidance on the environmental permitting regime.

The reformatted guidance, launched on 1 February, is part of an ongoing cross-DEFRA project to improve the quality of guidance, an outcome of the Red Tape Challenge. The intention is to make it more "focused on the users’ needs” said an EA press officer.

A total of 25 new pages have been added to the agency’s website, explaining in simple terms topics such as which activities require a permit, how to apply for an exemption, and the meaning of ‘best available techniques’ (BATs)

The previous generic ‘How to comply with your environmental permit’ document has been withdrawn and replaced with two new guides on developing an environmental management system and controlling and monitoring emissions, this is particularly relevant to biodegradable waste management activities.

The H1 guidance on risk assessment, alongside its annexes, has also gone. A new risk assessment overview guide is now available, with supporting guidance on risks to air, surface and ground waters and from intensive farming

• Check if you need an environmental permit
• Legal operator and competence requirements: environmental permits
• Best available techniques: environmental permits
• Control and monitor emissions for your environmental permit
• Develop a management system: environmental permits
• Change, transfer or cancel your environmental permit
• Risk assessments for your environmental permit
• Groundwater risk assessment for your environmental permit
• Air emissions risk assessment for your environmental permit
• Landfill developments: groundwater risk assessment for leachate
• Intensive farming risk assessment for your environmental permit
• Infiltration systems: groundwater risk assessments
• Assess the impact of air emissions on global warming
• Select a waste recovery or disposal method for your environmental permit
• Energy efficiency standards for industrial plants to get environmental permits
• Waste: environmental permits
• Register your waste exemptions: environmental permits
• Surface water pollution risk assessment for your environmental permit
• A1 installations: environmental permits
• Tracer tests and remediation schemes: environmental permit exemption
• How you'll be regulated: environmental permits
• Open-loop heat pump systems: permits, consents and licences
• Discharges to surface water and groundwater: environmental permits
• Dewatering building sites and other excavations: environmental permits
• Cutting vegetation in inland freshwater: environmental permit exemption

Published 3/2/2016