Water Act 1989

Consents for certain discharges

9 (1) Except in an emergency, no discharge through any pipe the diameter of which exceeds two hundred and twenty-nine millimetres shall be made under paragraph 8 above except—

(a) in the case of a discharge by the Authority, with such consent as may be prescribed; and

(b) in the case of a discharge by a water undertaker, with the consent of the Authority and of any navigation authority which carries out functions in relation to—

(i) the part of the watercourse where the discharge is made; or

(ii) any part of that watercourse which is less than three miles downstream from the place of the discharge.

(2) For the purposes of this paragraph, the Authority and every water undertaker shall keep a register of persons and premises and shall enter the name and address of any person in that register in respect of any premises which abut on any watercourse if that person has requested to be so registered and is either—

(a) the owner or occupier of those premises; or

(b) an officer of an association of owners or occupiers of premises which abut on that watercourse and include those premises.

(3) Where any person makes an application to any other person for a consent for the purposes of this paragraph—

(a) that application shall be accompanied or supplemented by all such information as that other person may reasonably require; and

(b) the applicant shall serve a copy of the application, and of any consent given on that application, on every person who—

(i) is registered with the applicant in respect of any premises which are within three miles of the place where the discharge to which the application relates is proposed to be made and are not upstream from that place; and

(ii) has not agreed in writing that he need not be served with such a copy.

(4) An application for a consent for the purposes of this paragraph shall be determined—

(a) in the case of an application with respect to a particular discharge, before the end of the period of seven days beginning with the day after the application is made; and

(b) in any other case, before the end of the period of three months beginning with that day;

and where an application for any consent is required to be determined within the period specified in paragraph (a) above and is not so determined, the consent applied for shall be deemed to have been given unconditionally.

(5) A consent for the purposes of this paragraph may relate to a particular discharge or to discharges of a particular description and may be made subject to such reasonable conditions as may be specified by the person giving it; but a consent for those purposes shall not be unreasonably withheld.

(6) Any dispute as to whether a consent for the purposes of this paragraph should be given or withheld, or as to whether the conditions to which any such consent is made subject are reasonable, shall be referred to the arbitration of a single arbitrator appointed by agreement between the parties to the dispute or, in default of agreement, by the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

(7) Where any discharge under paragraph 8 above is made in an emergency without the consent which, if there were no emergency, would be required by virtue of this paragraph, the Authority or, as the case may be, the undertaker which made the discharge shall, as soon as practicable after making the discharge, serve a notice which—

(a) states that the discharge has been made; and

(b) gives such particulars of the discharge and of the emergency as the persons served with the notice might reasonably require,

on every person on whom the Authority or that undertaker would have been required to serve the application for that consent or any copy of that application.

(8) If the Authority or any water undertaker contravenes, without reasonable excuse, any of the requirements of this paragraph or any condition of a consent given for the purposes of this paragraph, the Authority or, as the case may be, the undertaker shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.