Water Abstraction: Licensing
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to improve the responsiveness of the abstraction licensing system.
Answered by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government is acting to create a more dynamic abstraction licensing system. We plan to bring abstraction and impoundment regulation into the Environmental Permitting Regulations, providing a more flexible legislative framework.
The Environment Agency (EA) supports innovative approaches to abstraction that ensure the rights of other abstractors are protected, while safeguarding the environment. The EA are also developing digital systems to enable more responsive abstraction management.
Defra and the EA are facilitating an MHCLG funded trial of smart agricultural abstraction in Cambridge this year. The pilot provides real-time monitoring of water flows to farmers, enabling them to time their abstraction when more water is available.
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