Hoveton Great Broad – 3 Temporary Fish Barriers, EPR/RB3557SW: Flood risk activity permit consultation

Overview

We are seeking your comments on a flood risk activity permit application received from Natural England for temporary fish barriers at the entrances between Hoveton Great Broad and the Main River Bure.

Both Hoveton Great Broad and Hudson’s Bay require improvements to their ecological condition, despite improvement in the water quality of the adjoining River Bure. It is considered that the reason for the poor condition of the broads is high levels of nutrients bound up in the sediment. The overarching proposal has been to remove a significant proportion of nutrient-rich sediment from both Broads and use it to create new reedbed habitat within Hoveton Great Broad.

 The lakes will then be isolated from the river and dyke networks and approximately 75% of fish temporarily excluded in order to increase algal grazing and water clarity before allowing complete fish access to the broad once again. These actions are intended to improve the ecological condition of this designated broad.

 This permit is for the installation of three fish barriers to isolate Hoveton Great Broad from the Main River Bure. These fish barriers are to be installed at the following three entrances to Hoveton Great Broad:  Foxburrow dyke (TG32071581), the Dam (TG32421614) and Hoveton marshes (TG31891651). The fish barriers will be in place for up to 10 years.

©Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. Environment Agency, 100024198, 2021

Responding To The Consultation

Please click on the 'Give us your views' link below to answer the consultation questions. All of the relevant application documents are available to view in the 'related documents' field at the bottom of the page.

However, if you prefer, you can submit your response by email or post by downloading the response form found in 'related documents' below and sending it to:

Environment Agency
FAO - PSO Norfolk & Suffolk
Iceni House
Cobham Road
Ipswich
IP3 9JD

Or email: Enquiries_EastAnglia@environment-agency.gov.uk

Public Register for Flood Risk Activity Permits

Citizens Space is the Environment Agency’s public consultation portal and is not our Flood Risk Activity Permit public register. The Environment Agency’s Flood Risk Activity Permit public register is not web-based.

The documents which are on the public register which are not available on the Citizens Space portal are; correspondence between the applicant Natural England and the Environment Agency in the administering and receipt of the application.

To gain access to our public register records for this permit application you can either contact us via email on Enquiries_EastAnglia@environment-agency.gov.uk or under normal circumstances they could also be viewed on the public register at The Environment Agency, Iceni House, Cobham Road, Ipswich, IP3 9JD between 9.30am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday. Unfortunately we cannot currently allow the public into our offices to view the public register, due to our COVID-19 risk assessments and current lockdown rules. Electronic copies of the documents on the public register can be emailed. If you don’t have access to email or the internet please call us on 0203 0255472 to arrange for hard copies of the public register records to be provided, free of charge.

When contacting us in relation to the public register documents for this permit application, please state the permit reference (EPR/RB3557SW). We will aim to respond to your request within 10 working days as per our customer charter which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environment-agency-customer-service-commitment--2

Previous Permit Application

Please note that there was a previous permit application (EPR/NB3494JP) for the proposed works that are the subject of this application. The previous permit was quashed. The link to the previous public consultation is at the bottom of the 'Related Section'  at the bottom of this consultation page. Here you will be able to view our previous permitting decision documents as well as both internal and external consultation responses on the last application.

Flood Risk Hydraulic Model

The application supporting documents include the Flood Risk Hydraulic Model files. These files are too large to fit on this public consultation portal. As such the files have been uploaded on to the share file link below. This share file link will be available for the length of the public consultation.

Share file link: https://ea.sharefile.com/d-sde1ce6b6f89e4d7885d4c72d2ccf4cea

Minded To Consultation

We may need to consult further on information we receive during determination from internal teams, external consultees or the applicant. It is possible that we may undertake a secondary consultation, known as a ‘minded to consultation’ following this consultation period. This would give the general public the opportunity to view and provide any final comments on the draft decision document including both internal and external consultation responses and how we have considered them.

Why your views matter

We are consulting you as your opinion, views and insight are an important part of the consideration process of determining the permit application.

 If we decide to grant the permit we will explain how we made our decision and how we have addressed the concerns that were raised

We can take account of

• Relevant environmental regulatory requirements and technical standards.
• Information on local population and sensitive sites.
• Comments on whether the right process is being used for the activity, for example whether the technology is the right one.
• The design of the flood risk activity structures on the site in terms of its potential impact on flood risk and the environment, whether that impact is acceptable and what pollution control or other mitigation measures may be required.
• The impact of noise and other amenity issues from the installation and operation of the flood risk activity structures on the site.
• Permit conditions by providing information that we have not been made aware of in the application, or by correcting incorrect information in the application (e.g. monitoring and techniques to control pollution).

We cannot take account of

• Issues beyond those in the relevant environmental regulations.
• Anything outside the remit of the Environmental Permitting Regulations, e.g. the proposed location of the site, which is done by the local authority via land use planning.
• Whether a site should have a formal designation under Habitats Directive or other conservation legislation.
• Whether the activity should be allowed or not as a matter of principle.
• Land use issues when determining a permit application, even if changing the location of the activity would improve its environmental performance.
• The impact of noise and odour from traffic travelling to and from the site.
• The granting of a permit/variation if the operator is able to demonstrate that they can carry out the activity without significant risk to flooding, the environment or human health.
• Matters that are subject to ongoing enforcement investigations.

What happens next

Thank you for visiting our consultation page. This consultation is now closed. We are in the process of considering all received responses and will use these in our determination process.

If you have left your email address we will notify you that our decision has been confirmed and published. We will publish a consultation summary report within 12 weeks of the closing date.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to get in touch via:

By Email: Enquiries_EastAnglia@environment-agency.gov.uk 

By Telephone: 02084748663

By Post: 

PSO Norfolk & Suffolk
Environment Agency
Dragonfly House
2 Gilders Way
Norwich
NR3 1UB.