Get advice before you apply for a water abstraction or impounding licence

Before you apply for an abstraction or impounding licence, you can use the Environment Agency’s pre-application advice service to get:

• basic advice – this service is free
• enhanced advice – you pay for this service

Basic advice

You can get free basic pre-application advice on:

• the type of licence you need
• which application forms you should use
• what guidance you must follow
• the administrative tasks the Environment Agency may need you to do as part of your application

Enhanced (paid-for) advice

If you need more in-depth advice, the Environment Agency offers an enhanced pre-application advice service. As well as the information you can get through the free service, this could cover advice on:

• complex modelling for certain groundwater scenarios
• monitoring requirements (including baseline)
• complex application charge questions
• public engagement plans for high public interest applications
• requirements of nationally significant infrastructure projects

The Environment Agency will tell you what kind of advice they can give you after you request help.

How much it costs

The enhanced service costs £100 an hour plus VAT.

You will get a written estimate before the Environment Agency starts work on your request. This will include:

• a list of the work they will carry out, with costs
• when you will be charged

If you (or someone else on your behalf) send new information related to your request, the Environment Agency may need to revise the estimate. They will write to you to agree:

• any changes to the scope of the work
• the cost estimate

What the service cannot help with

The pre-application advice service cannot:

• provide you with written confirmation to say that you do not need a licence
• confirm that all or part of your licence application will be acceptable before you have applied

Hydropower schemes

There’s different guidance if you want pre-application advice for a hydropower scheme.

Before you contact the service

First, check if you need an abstraction licence or impounding licence.

If you want to abstract groundwater from a borehole or well,well contactyou theshould Environmentcheck Agency’sif generalyou enquiriesneed teamto apply for consent to investigate a groundwater source before you apply for a licence. You may need to apply for a separate consent to construct the borehole or well and complete a test pumping of it.

Before you ask for licence application advice, you should gather:

• your details, including company number (if you have one) and site address
• the 12-figure National Grid reference (such as ST 58132 72695) for the locations where you intend to abstract or impound water – check this using the UK Grid Reference Finder
• invoice details if you want enhanced advice
• a reference number if your question relates to an existing licence or pre-application query

Request pre-application advice

Use the relevant application forms to ask for pre-application advice. For:

• abstraction, complete part A and part B
• impounding, complete part A and part D

Say whether you want basic or enhanced advice when you fill in part A.

The forms explain where to send the information.

You may have to give hydrological information when you apply for a licence. You can check the important hydrological information to give.