The Wye Navigation Order 2002

Licensing of works

22.—(1) The Agency may, upon such terms and conditions as it thinks fit and upon payment of any fee required pursuant to paragraph (9), grant to any person a licence (in this Order referred to as a “works licence”) to undertake any dredging or to construct, alter, renew, extend or maintain any works in or on the principal rivers or involving the cutting of any of the banks of the principal rivers notwithstanding interference by such works as constructed, altered, renewed, extended or maintained with the right of navigation referred to in article 7(2).

(2) Application for a works licence shall be made in writing to the Agency and shall be accompanied by plans, sections and particulars of the works to which the application relates, and in granting any such licence the Agency may require modifications in those plans, sections and particulars.

(3) If within three months from the date of the making of an application under paragraph (2), the Agency does not grant a works licence in accordance with the application, it shall be deemed to have refused the application.

(4) Where, on an application for a works licence, the Agency refuses to grant the licence, or grants it upon terms and conditions, or requires any modifications in the plans, sections and particulars, the notice in which its decision is conveyed to the applicant shall state clearly and precisely the reasons for its refusal or, as the case may be, for the terms or conditions imposed or the modifications required.

(5) Any applicant for a works licence who is aggrieved by—

(a) the refusal or deemed refusal of the Agency to grant the licence;

(b) any terms or conditions upon which the licence is granted; or

(c) any modifications required by the Agency in the plans, sections and particulars submitted by the applicant,

may, within 28 days after the date on which the Agency gives him notice of the decision, or after the date of any deemed refusal, appeal to the appropriate national authority, whose decision shall be binding upon the parties.

(6) A person who appeals to the appropriate national authority under this article shall give the Agency notice of his appeal accompanied by a copy of his statement of appeal and the Agency shall within 28 days from the giving of such notice be entitled to give in writing to the appropriate national authority its observations on the appeal.

(7) On an appeal under this article the appropriate national authority may—

(a) dismiss the appeal; or

(b) require the Agency either—

(i) to grant the licence upon such terms and conditions as the appropriate national authority may determine; or

(ii) to approve the plans, sections and particulars without modifications or subject to such modifications as the appropriate national authority may determine,

not being terms, conditions or modifications more onerous than those imposed by the Agency; and the Agency shall give effect to any requirement made by the appropriate national authority under this paragraph.

(8) Nothing in any licence under this article shall entitle a person to carry out works on any land in which he has no appropriate interest without the consent of any person having such an interest.

(9) The Agency may require an applicant for a works licence, on making his application, to pay a reasonable fee in respect of the administrative expenses of dealing with the application; and different fees may be specified in relation to different cases or classes of case.

(10) A list showing the fees for the time being payable by applicants for works licences shall be kept by the Agency and a copy of the list shall be supplied by the Agency on request to any person appearing to have an interest.

(11) In carrying out any works or undertaking any dredging pursuant to a works licence the holder of the licence shall not damage, adversely affect or obstruct access to any property of a statutory undertaker without the consent of the statutory undertaker concerned.

(12) No dredging or deposit of dredged material shall be carried out pursuant to a works licence within 50 metres of any property of Railtrack without Railtrack’s approval of the proposed operation but no further consent shall be required under paragraph (11) for an operation which has been approved under this paragraph.

(13) Before undertaking any dredging in accordance with a works licence granted under this article the holder of the licence shall give notice to Dŵr Cymru and in carrying out such dredging shall observe such reasonable conditions as Dŵr Cymru may impose for the protection of its property and for the protection of water abstracted by Dŵr Cymru, but no consent shall be required under paragraph (11) for dredging carried out in accordance with conditions imposed by Dŵr Cymru under this paragraph.

(14) Any dispute between the holder of a works licence and Dŵr Cymru as to the reasonableness of any condition imposed by Dŵr Cymru under paragraph (13) shall be determined in the manner provided by article 27(6) as though it were a dispute between the Agency and a statutory undertaker.

(15) Every works licence shall have attached to it a copy of paragraphs (11) to (14).

(16) A works licence granted under this article shall have effect for a period of 5 years from the date of its issue whereupon it lapses if the works to which it relates have not by then been carried out.