Discharge of water
17.—(1) The undertaker may use any watercourse or any public sewer or drain for the drainage of water in connection with the construction or maintenance of the authorised works and for that purpose may lay down, take up and alter pipes and may, on any land within the limits of deviation shown on the plans or in any street along which the authorised guided busway is authorised to cross, make openings into, and connections with, the watercourse, sewer or drain.
(2) The undertaker shall not discharge any water into any watercourse, public sewer or drain except with the consent of the authority to which it belongs; and such consent may be given subject to such terms and conditions as the authority may reasonably impose but shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(3) The undertaker shall not make any opening into any public sewer or drain except in accordance with plans approved by, and under the superintendence (if provided) of, the authority to which the sewer or drain belongs, but such approval shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(4) The undertaker shall not, in the exercise of the powers conferred by this article, damage or interfere with the bed or banks of any watercourse forming part of a main river.
(5) The undertaker shall take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that any water discharged into a watercourse or public sewer or drain under the powers conferred by this article is as free as may be practicable from gravel, soil or other solid substance or oil or matter in suspension.
(6) This article does not authorise the entry into controlled waters of any matter whose entry or discharge into controlled waters is prohibited by section 85(1), (2) or (3) of the Water Resources Act 1991(1).
(7) In this article—
(a)“public sewer or drain” means a sewer or drain which belongs to a sewerage undertaker, the Environment Agency, an internal drainage board or a local authority;
(b)“watercourse” includes all rivers, streams, ditches, drains, cuts, culverts, dykes, sluices, sewers and passages through which water flows except a public sewer or drain; and
(c)other expressions used both in this article and in the Water Resources Act 1991 have the same meaning as in that Act.