Environmental permit in England and how to check the rules
An environmental permit authorises specified activities in England. Check whether you need one, choose the right route and search the EA register.
An environmental permit authorises specified activities that could affect the environment, subject to its conditions. In England, whether you need one depends on the activity and any applicable exclusion or exemption, as the government's permit guidance explains.
Start with the activity. Not every industrial site needs an Environment Agency (EA) permit. Some activities fall to local councils, as the permit guidance explains. For an existing site, an entry on the EA permit register can help you find records, but the permit documents show what is authorised. This guide covers England, not the whole UK. If the online record is incomplete, use the public-register access guidance.
When do you need an environmental permit?
The activity guidance covers installations, waste and mining-waste operations, and a medium combustion plant or specified generator. It also covers small waste incineration plants, mobile plant, solvent emission activities and radioactive substances. These are starting categories. Check the definitions and rules before you decide which route applies.
Stand-alone water discharges and groundwater activities have a narrower test. Unless an exclusion or exemption applies, you need an environmental permit for a stand-alone discharge of polluting liquids to surface water, such as a river or stream. The same activity guidance applies that test to a stand-alone groundwater activity that releases polluting liquids directly or indirectly to water underground.
Certain flood risk activities need their own check. You may need a permit for work in, under, over or near a main river, including where the river is in a culvert. You may also need one for work on or near a flood defence on a main river, in the flood plain of a main river, or on or near a sea defence. Don't assume every watercourse project falls to the EA. Water abstraction and impounding licences are separate permissions, even though the same government guidance discusses them.
The legal framework is the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, often called EPR 2016. Regulation 12 says a person must not operate a regulated facility, or cause or knowingly permit a water discharge or groundwater activity, except to the extent an environmental permit authorises it. Exceptions and transitional provisions sit in that regulation. Holding a permit does not authorise an activity an operator later chooses to add.
Check exclusions and exemptions
An exclusion means you do not need a permit for that activity. An exemption is different: you do not need a permit, but you may have to register. Check whether that exemption requires registration. The activity still has to match the description and conditions. A registration is not permission for everything done at the site. See the activity guidance and Schedule 2.
For waste operations, keep regulatory position statements (RPSs) separate from permits and statutory exemptions. An RPS describes circumstances where the EA will not normally take enforcement action if its conditions are met. It does not grant a permit or create a statutory exemption. Read the current statement before you rely on it, using the waste environmental permits guidance.
Is the regulator the EA or your local council?
Apply to the EA if the activity is listed as Part A1. Apply to the local council if it is listed as Part A2 or Part B. Councils also regulate solvent emission activities. The split matters when you choose an application route or look for an existing permit. The official guidance identifies the regulator.
Check associated activities separately. A council-regulated installation does not automatically put every activity at that site under council control. Regulation 32 allocates regulator functions and includes exceptions. The EA permit register is not a complete list of English environmental permissions, because the permit guidance sends some activities to the local council.
Standard rules permit or bespoke permit?
A standard rules permit uses fixed rules for a defined activity. A bespoke permit is tailored to the business activities. For waste operations, the EA directs applicants to the bespoke route where the operation does not meet the standard-rule conditions. See the waste permit guidance.
| Question | Standard rules permit | Bespoke permit |
|---|---|---|
| What conditions apply? | A fixed published rule set | Conditions tailored to the activities |
| What decides the route? | The operation must fit the description, rules and location criteria | The activity follows a bespoke assessment route |
| Can you tailor the rule set? | No. The published set is fixed | A bespoke permit is tailored to the activities |
Check the rule set, not just its title. The standard-rules collection includes location criteria and marks some sets as unavailable for new applications. But a matching title is not enough when that set is closed to new applicants.
You cannot vary the rules, and you have no right of appeal against them. If the site does not meet the criteria, the EA will return the application. Those limits are on the standard-rules collection.
Standard rules are not confined to waste. The collection also includes flood risk, combustion and generator, water-discharge and non-nuclear radioactive-substances categories. Use the section for your activity. Do not borrow conditions from a different permit type.
If planned changes mean the operation will no longer meet its standard rules, apply to change to a bespoke permit. You cannot rewrite the fixed rules or ignore a condition that does not fit. The collection explains that change.
A bespoke application is not a promise of approval.
Preparing an application for an environmental permit
Before you start an application, write down which activities need permission and which regulator handles each one. This sequence draws together the activity guidance, the standard-rules collection and the waste application guidance:
- Identify the activities you intend to carry out.
- Establish the regulator for each activity.
- Check applicable exclusions and exemptions, including their conditions.
- Test any available standard-rule set against the operation and the location.
- Follow the application guidance for that activity and route, including the supporting information it asks for.
For a bespoke waste application, the EA guidance covers the legal operator, competence and a management system. It also covers risk assessment, emission-control design and sector guidance. Those are waste-application requirements, not a universal form list for every environmental permit. Use the waste guidance for that route, and the relevant activity guidance for others.
How to search the Environment Agency permit register
The EA permit register helps you locate a site's records. It does not hold every English environmental permission. Start at Public Registers Online. That page offers a quick search and routes into individual registers. For a site check, separate finding an entry from confirming what its documents authorise.
- Open the all-register search. Use the permit or registration number if you have it. Otherwise search by business name and site location. The search includes address and postcode or distance fields. Individual registers do not all show the same fields.
- Leave the document filters off while you check whether an entry exists. Filtered results show permits with published documents only. A missing online document does not mean there is no permit.
- Open the result and check that the operator and site match. Then read the displayed status. For a waste permit, you can use the waste-operations search.
- Obtain the permit and the relevant changes. If the documents are not online, the access guidance says you can ask the EA for a copy.
- Check enforcement on its own register. The cross-register search excludes enforcement actions. The separate register covers formal cautions and prosecutions against companies, as the access guidance describes. A cross-register result cannot prove there has been no enforcement.
Registered waste carriers, brokers and dealers are listed separately from environmental permits. Finding one of those registrations does not show that the business holds an environmental permit. The access guidance keeps those searches apart.
Missing documents are a practical obstacle. Even a record marked "Effective" does not establish the full authorised activities, limits or current compliance. Read the documents before you draw those conclusions. The document-request guidance is the next step when the online record is incomplete.
How to comply with your environmental permit
Read the permit you actually hold, and the rules that apply to it. Before you change an operation, check that the proposed activity stays inside the authorised scope. For a standard rules permit, also check that the operation still meets the rules and the location criteria. Those checks follow regulation 12 and the standard-rules guidance. RegAffairs AI answers questions about environmental permits in England.
Keep the permit and the relevant changes together when you decide whether a proposed activity is authorised. If a document is missing, ask the EA for a copy through the access guidance.