Environment Agency charge proposals for April 2025: Reducing waste crime and updating time and materials charges

The proposed charges, to be implemented from April 2025, include the following.

New charges for activities that we have not previously undertaken

• waste crime levy

New charges for activities where we could not previously recover our costs

• waste exemptions
• waste fee for intervention
• hourly rates for nuclear off-site emergency plan testing
• upfront fee plus hourly rate for advice on voluntary remediation (legacy pollution)

Updates to existing charges which are no longer recovering full costs

• hourly rate for unplanned events
• hourly rates for radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity)
• hourly rates for the control of major accident hazards
• hourly rate for water pollution incident activity
• hourly rate for definition of waste
• hourly rate for hydraulic fracturing plans
• hourly rate for planning activity (work of our Sustainable Places teams)
• replacing the hourly rate for medium combustion plant annual subsistence with fixed charges

The proposed charges for waste exemptions include:

• a registration charge
• a compliance charge (includes 4 separate bands, with savings where operators register multiple waste exemptions)

For farmers, we propose:

• a registration charge
• a compliance charge reduction covering a set of 15 waste exemptions commonly required by farmers (the ‘common on-farm’ group)
• any additional waste exemptions beyond the ‘common on-farm’ group will have the same compliance charge as for all other operators; this includes 4 separate bands, with savings if registering multiple waste exemptions

The proposed waste fee for intervention will enable us to recover the costs of regulating waste operations where we suspect an operator lacks the required authorisation. This is a new charge that will apply as follows:

• if we reasonably suspect a waste operation is breaching the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR) or Environmental Protection Act (EPA), the operator will have to pay for the time we take to identify the suspected breach and help put things right
• the operator will be charged at the proposed rate of £100 plus the cost of any materials

The proposed waste levy will generate income to help deal with waste crime.

Our proposal will introduce additional charges relating to the regulation of activities covered by the Environmental Permitting Regulations for waste operations.

We propose a 10% additional levy to apply to annual subsistence charges of permits for ‘waste transfer treatment’ and ‘landfill and deposit for recovery’.

We propose to update some of our hourly rates (time and materials charging). This includes the hourly rates we use for the following supplementary activities associated with environmental permits:

• unplanned events
• radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity)

We propose to introduce hourly rate charges for:

• discretionary advice on voluntary remediation (legacy pollution)
• work to test off-site nuclear emergency plans

We propose to update the existing hourly rate charges for:

• definition of waste service
• hydraulic fracturing plans

We propose to update the following hourly rates under other regulations:

• water pollution incident activity under the Water Resources Act 1991 section 161ZC
• control of major accident hazards (COMAH) under the Control Of Major Accidents Hazards Regulations 2015
• planning activity (work of our Sustainable Places teams) under the Environment Act 1995, Planning Act 2008 and Infrastructure Planning (Fees) Regulations 2010 (as amended)

We propose to replace hourly rates for medium combustion plant annual subsistence with fixed charge rates.

Most of our hourly rates were introduced or last revised in 2018. The proposed changes will make sure we can continue to recover the costs of these regulatory activities.

We propose to update our charges annually in line with inflation for waste exemptions (including T11 exemptions), fee for intervention, the waste crime levy and our hourly rates. This will help us maintain full cost recovery. All charges and fees for these activities will be updated on 1 April.

We will calculate updated charges based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) measure of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, using the figure they publish on 30 September in the immediately preceding year. The inflationary increase to these charges will be equal to or less than this measure. Increases will be less if we believe our increased costs do not equate to the CPI measure.

We have chosen the CPI measure as this is widely recognised, understood, and accepted as a measure of cost inflation. We therefore believe it is the most appropriate measure of the increases in our own costs. It is used by:

• economic regulators to set regulated charges
• government to set taxes and benefits
• employers in wage bargaining
• private sector companies to set payment amounts in business contracts 

If we believe our charges need to increase by more than the CPI, we will commence another review, seek HM Treasury approval and conduct a new public consultation.

We have reviewed all our hourly rates and only propose to change some of these in April 2025. However, all our hourly rates (including those that do not change in April 2025) will be subject to inflationary increases as applicable, from April 2026 onwards.

In April 2025, we are not proposing to change our hourly rates for:

• any of our supplementary regulatory activities associated with applications for an environmental permit
• some of our supplementary regulatory activities associated with subsistence requirements for an environmental permit

As a result, hourly rates for the following time and materials charges will remain unchanged in our proposed charging scheme for April 2025, but will be subject to inflationary increases where applicable in future years:

• enhanced pre-application advice
• application charges for sites of high public interest, novel technologies and applications in stages
• approvals under permit conditions
• ship dismantling

We seek to recover the full cost of our services through charges. We have reviewed our charges to address changes in the cost of delivering our services, inflationary pressures and incorporating the cost of new services that will improve the way we regulate.

The following legislation gives us the power to make charges as proposed in this consultation.

Sections 41 and 42 of the Environment Act 1995 allow us to charge for environmental permits. These powers were amended by sections 64 and 65 of the Environment Act 2021 to allow us to fund our work dealing with waste crime. We are proposing to do this by:

• charging for waste exemptions (registration and compliance charges)
• introducing a waste fee for intervention
• introducing a waste levy based on annual subsistence charges for waste permits

We propose to update the following time and materials charges for supplementary regulatory activities associated with subsistence requirements for an environmental permit:

• unplanned events
• hydraulic fracturing plan activity
• radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity)
• medium combustion plants annual subsistence

Our current charging scheme is The Environment Agency (Environmental Permitting and Abstraction Licensing) (England) Charging Scheme 2022. This scheme sets out our existing EPR charges and we will amend it as appropriate in April 2025 to include any new or updated charges for the above regulatory activities.

Section 43 of the Environment Act 1995 gives us the incidental power to fix and recover the following charges:

• testing off-site nuclear emergency plans under The Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2019 (REPPIR) 
• discretionary service offering advice on voluntary remediation of land affected by legacy pollution
• definition of waste advice service 

Section 43 of the Environment Act 1995, Section 54A of the Planning Act 2008 and the Infrastructure Planning (Fees) Regulations 2010 (as amended) allow us to recover the following charges: 

• planning activities (work of our Sustainable Places teams)

New hourly rates for the above activities will be published on GOV.UK in April 2025 following the consultation.

Different legislation gives us the ability to charge for some of our other activities.

The COMAH regulations 2015 are made under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 (as amended). Our current charges are set out on our GOV.UK fees and charges page and will be updated, as appropriate, to reflect any changes to these charges in April 2025:

• control of major accident hazards (COMAH) – hourly rates

The Water Resources Act 1991 section 161ZC allows us to recover the costs of taking certain measures to address pollution incidents. Our current charge for this work is £84 per hour and will be updated, as appropriate, in April 2025:

• water pollution incident activity – hourly rate

Under HM Treasury’s managing public money guidance, we have a responsibility to recover the costs of our regulatory activity by setting charges for the work we do at the appropriate level. Our charges allow us to recover the cost of work we do to provide and regulate environmental permits, or to regulate waste and other activities. This work includes: 

• permitting
• environmental planning
• monitoring, both environmental and discharges
• evaluation, reporting, and analyses on the status of the environment
• compliance and incident work
• advice and guidance
• engagement

Charges should represent the full costs of the service provided to the customer. By following this guidance, we will make sure the charges we introduce are:

• representative of the effort we take to fulfil our statutory duties
• enabling us to provide a suitable level of regulatory oversight

We designed our proposals to create charges that are fair and will allow us to deliver an efficient and effective service by recovering the costs of our regulatory work. We have explained how we calculate our charges and the costs we incur in the guide provided with this consultation.

Illegal waste activity harms communities, the environment and the economy. It is estimated to cost nearly £1 billion to the taxpayer and legitimate industry. In the most recent waste crime survey, we found that 18% of waste (34 million tonnes per year) may be managed illegally at some point in the waste cycle.

Waste crime is often committed by serious criminals, with organised crime gangs increasingly entering this sector, drawn by high returns and limited levels of enforcement. Waste crime can involve:

• illegal waste sites
• illegal dumping
• landfill tax avoidance
• abuse of waste permits and exemptions
• illegal exports

There are clear benefits to gain from investing in enforcement against waste crime.

Improved regulation of waste exemptions, supported by the proposed charges, will:

• reduce environmental damage, for example from waste fires, waste abandonment and use of inappropriate waste types and quantities
• reduce unacceptable impacts on communities
• reduce economic impacts on legitimate business by ensuring waste is managed through legitimate waste management sites
• reduce leakage from the circular economy
• reduce costs from, for example, dealing with pollution incidents and managing illegal waste activity associated with waste exemptions

We want to check that operators who register waste exemptions, comply with the associated limits and conditions. We know a significant number of operators register exemptions and do not comply. For example, we found 42% of registrants inspected in 2022 were non-compliant. Waste exemptions are abused to hide illegal waste activities creating widescale risk of pollution and harm to communities. The Environmental Services Association report ‘counting the cost of UK waste crime’ estimated the annual cost of exemption breaches to the public sector in 2018/19 at £87 million. Better monitoring of waste exemptions will help achieve the targets from the resources and waste strategy to deter criminals from operating in the waste management sector and enforce better environmental standards.

We have found many examples of waste exemption abuse across multiple industry sectors. The following enforcement cases associated with waste exemptions can be viewed on GOV.UK.

• dumper told to remove waste from floodplain at cost of £85,000
• farmer and haulier fined for tipping waste on Plympton farm
• waste tyre offences in Calderdale and Bradford result in suspended prison sentences
• tyre company hit with £100,000 fine for breaking rules in Northamptonshire
• Essex company and directors fined thousands for illegal waste site  
• Hampshire company fined for operating illegally at Wiltshire farm
• Newquay farmer damages badger sett by dumping waste

Charging for waste exemptions will allow us to make improvements to our existing services and carry out proactive compliance activity. This will help us ensure waste exemptions are complied with and prevent and detect illegal activity.

Waste operations that do not comply with a permit or operate in the absence of an authorisation can pose a significant risk to human health and the environment. They also put waste producers and processors who comply with regulations at a disadvantage.

The proposed fee for intervention applies where we suspect a waste operator lacks the required authorisation. It will allow us to recover our costs when we respond to illegal waste activity. We stop these waste operations and make sure they are made compliant by using a range of responses, known as “interventions”. As outlined in the Environment Agency enforcement and sanctions policy, an intervention can include:

• advice and guidance
• warnings
• notices, powers and orders

Interventions may consist of many discrete actions, such as preparing for a visit or meeting, travel or phone calls, assessing environmental impact and advising routes to compliance. These actions and interventions ensure waste is managed in a way that avoids pollution of the environment. The fee for intervention now allows us to seek these costs where charging powers have not previously allowed us to.

Government’s ambition to eliminate waste crime and illegal waste sites by the end of 2042 is set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan. We will use income generated from the proposed levy to reduce waste crime.

Levy funding will be utilised in line with recommendations made in the independent review of serious and organised crime in the waste sector and our approach to reduce offending in the waste sector. It will enable us to undertake additional waste enforcement activity and proactive campaigns alongside what we are already funded to do through government grant in aid. This will help us to both pursue and prevent illegal activities by those who operate with or without a relevant permit or exemption. We will use the additional income to fund frontline operational activity and support legitimate businesses in the industry by taking swift action against those who act illegally. Funding will also go towards improved IT systems for better forensic analysis of digital devices, evidence storage and pursuing costs, for example those associated with the seizing of vehicles. This would involve targeted and intelligence-led campaigns to prevent and disrupt our priority waste crime types. These include illegal waste dumps, high risk permitted sites and the deliberate misdescription of waste associated with landfill tax fraud.

The focus will be on those we find to be acting illegally and undercutting legitimate business. The resources and waste strategy has brought together a wide range of policy changes across the waste sector. Additional funding from the waste crime levy will maximise the benefits of this regulatory reform, preventing criminal enterprises from entering the sector, and so turn the tide on crime levels.

We use hourly rate charging when additional time or materials costs arise for specific regulatory activities that are not already accounted for within the cost of a permit. The proposed charges will enable us to recover the cost of:

• supplementary regulatory activities associated with subsistence requirements for an environmental permit; this includes updates to the hourly rates for unplanned events and radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity)
• testing off-site nuclear emergency plans (REPPIR)
• regulatory activities for the control of major accident hazards (COMAH)
• water pollution incident activities
• definition of waste service
• hydraulic fracturing plan activity
• planning activities (work of our Sustainable Places teams)
• advice on voluntary remediation of land affected by legacy pollution

Many of our hourly rates (time and materials charges) were introduced or last revised during our strategic review of charges in 2018. We committed to hold most of them at the same level for 5 years. Some of them need to be updated, but others will remain unchanged in 2025 because we have been able to balance the cost of inflation with efficiency savings.