Wiser Environment has been reviewing the consultation documents to understand the implications for operators new and old. The documentation is structured in a way that makes direct comparison between proposed and current charges very difficult but whilst we continue to wade through the consultation, we thought it useful to extract some of the key issues. It is quite clear that the changes will be significant and equally clear that it is no easy task to determine the true impact on operators!
The EA’s proposals include:
- Environmental permitting pre-application advice from the EA will be limited, anything beyond this will be charge at £100 per hour
- The application fee for a Standard Rules Environmental Permit will increase by at least 60%
- Once an application has been submitted then additional requests for information from the EA will be charged at £1,200
- Permit applications will be based on a baseline fee with bolt on costs for additional items such as fire prevention plans, habitat screening and odour management plans – each costing an additional £779 to £1,241
- Where there are approvals required under the permit e.g. improvement conditions or other plans then determination of these will be charged at £100 per hour
- Where sites have Category 1 or 2 pollution incidents then resultant EA compliance workload will be charged at £84 per hour
- An annual charge of £2,240 will introduced for operators (MRF) who have an obligation to report under Schedule 9 Part 2 (‘MF Regs’) of Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations (EPR)
- An annual charge of £530 will be introduced for holders of mobile plant for land spreading in addition to the deployment charge
- An additional fee of £672 will be due during the first year of operation under a new permit, over and above annual subsistence fee
Please contact us on 01480 462 232 with any site specific queries and we will review the consultation to see how you may be impacted next year. If you would like help in responding to the consultation we would be happy to discuss how we might support you.
Participate in the consultation here.