Welcome to the Environment Agency’s online consultation hub

We asked you to give your views on:

• proposals for a revised boat registration charging framework
• a 3 year charging plan for 2022 to 2024
• proposals for new registration requirements for business boats
• potential future changes that may affect these customers

Your responses showed us:

• good support for the majority of our framework proposals
• strong opposition to the introduction of an area-based charge
• the current service is poor and does not meet your expectations
• opposition to our proposed charge increases over the 3 years of the scheme
• very good support for our proposals for new registration requirements for business boats
• valuable feedback and support for the topics raised in the forward look section

We have reflected on your feedback and amended our proposals to create the following actions:

• we will implement many elements of the charge framework as proposed and consulted including:
  • charging for unpowered open boats
  • concessionary charges for not-for-profit organisations and charities
  • simplified charges for tenders and introducing charges on the Medway Navigation
  • common charging for event registrations
  • charges for workboats and tugs
  • the approach for short period registrations, refunds and part year registrations
  • exemptions from charging for certain classification of boats
  • arrangements for boating trade
  • other charges
  • charges for business boats
• we will not implement the area-based charge on any of the waterways, we will keep the current charge mechanisms for powered and unpowered enclosed boats
• we will increase charges by 4% in 2022, 4% in 2023 and 2% in 2024

Our revised approach provides a much improved and consistent charging framework and will help to secure the necessary funds to cover the increasing cost of operating our waterways over the next 3 years. 

You can find our full summary of your responses in our consultation response document at consultation response documents.
We have also prepared the 2022 boat charging scheme for all waterways which you can find at national navigation (boat registration) charging schemes.

If you have any questions regarding our summary, please email enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk or call us on 03708 506 506 (Mon to Fri 8 to 6).

Thank you for taking part in our consultation.

We asked for your opinions and comments on our proposed classification of water stressed areas in England for the purpose of compulsory metering.

We received 54 responses in total. Of these responses, 28 were from individuals, 9 were from water companies, 8 were from environmental groups and charities, 7 were from public or nationally representative bodies and 2 were from businesses. The responses included a range of comments and views which have been summarised in the consultation response document.

Having reviewed the evidence and all consultation responses we carried out some more tests to check the results. We wrote to the Secretary of State with our advice on water stress and he determined the following areas will be classified as areas of serious water stress: 

• Cambridge Water
• Portsmouth Water
• South Staffordshire Water
• Severn Trent Water – excluding Chester zone
• Veolia Water
• Wessex Water
• South West Water – Bournemouth
• South West Water – Isles of Scilly

This consultation was for the Transboundary Impact Assessment (TIA) submitted by FCC Recycling (UK) Ltd as part of their application to vary their radioactive substances activity permit for the Lillyhall Landfill site in West Cumbria. The consultation took place from 4 February 2021 to 5 March 2021. It provided the opportunity for the public, professional bodies and stakeholders to provide comments on the TIA.

This was in addition to the consultation on the full application to vary the Lillyhall landfill site permit, which took place from 4 March 2019 to 6 May 2019.

We received zero responses to the TIA consultation. Therefore we have not produced a summary of consultation responses document, as we have done for the consultation on the full application to vary the Lillyhall landfill site permit.

We have now reached our final decision on this application and issued the permit variation on 15 July 2021.

A copy of all the documents relevant to this permit variation, including the permit, variation and decision document, can be found by visiting the original consultation ‘Lillyhall Landfill Site RSA Permit Variation’ - Please see link below.