The Environment Agency (Teggsnose Reservoir and Langley Bottoms Reservoir) Drought Order 2018

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order, made on the application of the Environment Agency, makes provision to meet a deficiency in the level of water in the Teggsnose and Langley Bottoms reservoirs, which arises from an exceptional shortage of rain and poses a serious threat to the flora and fauna which are dependent on those waters, including flora and fauna in the River Bollin into which these reservoirs flow. In accordance with section 74(3) of the Water Resources Act 1991, this Order will cease to have effect on 12th March 2019 (within six months of the day on which the Order comes into force).

The Macclesfield Corporation Act 1939 (“the 1939 Act”) currently requires the Company to release not less than 525,000 gallons of water every twenty four hours from the Teggsnose and Langley Bottoms reservoirs into the River Bollin (this obligation, once placed on the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the borough of Macclesfield, now binds the Company). The Company (as successor in title to the Macclesfield District Water Board) is authorised to abstract water from Ridgegate and Trentabank reservoirs, which flow into the Teggsnose and Langley Bottoms reservoirs, under abstraction licence numbered 25/69/018/047 (“the Licence”). The Licence is subject to the provisions of the 1939 Act.

The effect of this Order is to modify the 1939 Act so that the amount of water the Company is required to release is reduced to not less than 1.8 megalitres of water every twenty four hours, and to make equivalent modifications to the Licence.

Article 4 provides that the modifications made by this Order are not to be taken as authorising any environmental damage for the purposes of the Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) (England) Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/810) (and accordingly the Company may not rely on this Order to support grounds for an appeal against a notice relating to remediation of environmental damage).

The abstraction licence is available for public inspection at Environment Agency, Richard Fairclough House, Knutsford Road, Latchford, Warrington, Cheshire, WA4 1HT.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.