We Asked, You Said, We Did

On 12 December 2022 the Environment Agency published updated  flood risk management plans (FRMPs)  for England to cover the period from 2021 - 2027.  

FRMPs set out how organisations, stakeholders and communities will work together to manage flood risk in England. 

They are strategic plans that set out how to manage flood risk in nationally identified flood risk areas (FRAs) for the period 2021-2027, and are statutory plans required by the Flood Risk Regulations 2009. 

We have worked together with Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs) and risk management authorities (RMAs) to produce the latest plans and a public consultation of the draft plans was held between October 2021 and January 2022. 

We received 255 responses in total to the consultation. The main themes you raised were: 

• Partnerships – the value of working in partnership to plan and deliver flood risk management solutions. 

• Engagement – the value of engagement and working in partnership with all organisations and government departments. 

• Nature-based solutions – support for the implementation of nature-based solutions, including natural flood management techniques, so more biodiversity and environmental benefits can be delivered across the flood and water environment. 

• Catchment-based approach – support for and a greater emphasis on this for flood risk management. 

• Alignment - the need to align with other plans and strategies so delivery is effective, for example, local nature recovery strategies, and shoreline management plans. 

• Land management – the need to consider all land uses, when assessing and managing flood risk, including the benefits of agricultural land. 

• Climate change and adaptation – the importance of working together across all organisations to adapt and having better information on factors such as the carbon footprint of the measures. 

• Funding – the need to identify funding and resources for the timely delivery of measures. 

• Readability – the ability to find information in the plans and within flood plan explorer. 

On 18 May 2022 we published a summary of responses. 

Responses received were analysed to identify actions to take as result of the consultation, and implement any changes needed in the FRMPs and to the associated Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). We have also published the Habitats Regulations Assessment and the SEA Statement of Environmental Particulars.

The consultation feedback was compiled in two documents:

• a summary of responses, published on 18 May 2022
• a ‘You said we did’ document, published on 12 December 2022.

The ‘You said, we did’ document explains how the feedback received from the consultation on the draft FRMPs was integrated into the final FRMPs. It builds on the summary of responses document published in May 2022 and describes the work that the Environment Agency and other risk management authorities are committing to undertake until 2027.

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 the potential options to extend the beach netting fishing for sea trout in Yorkshire and the North East.

We received 562 online responses to the consultation. 93% opposed an extension of the current netting season and 7% were in favour.

Having reviewed the evidence and all consultation responses we find it is not appropriate to recommend an extension to the sea trout netting season at this time. 

The consultation on the application to accept low level radioactive wastes at the Port Clarence landfill site took place from 20 September 2019 to 31 January 2020. It provided the opportunity for the public, professional bodies and stakeholders, to provide comments on the application.

We have received 2329 responses to the consultation from various stakeholders. There were only 13 responses in support of the application. The responses included various comments and questions which have been summarised in the Summary of consultation responses document which can be found below.

We are currently assessing the application and the consultation responses will be considered as part of this assessment. We expect a decision on the application to be made in 2021 and will run a new consultation at that stage.

Given interest in the river coarse fish close season, the Environment Agency ran a public consultation from 14 January 2019 for 12 weeks to gather any further evidence to help determine if there was a case for changing the byelaw and to understand stakeholder concerns around three options: to retain, amend or remove the close season.

The consultation generated 13,680 responses.

No additional substantive evidence emerged from the consultation. Fifty percent of respondents support removing the close season; 39% support retaining the current close season; and 9% support retaining a close season, but with different dates (four weeks later and two weeks shorter). Those national representative organisations that responded, along with Natural England, supported retaining the close season (The Angling Trust responded, but adopted a neutral position).

Please read the full report on the consultation feedback by clicking on the link below.

Coarse fishing close season on English rivers - public consultation report - Dec 2019, 2.1 MB (PDF document)

The Environment Agency will retain the coarse fishing close season on English rivers.

The existing evidence indicates that removing the close season would pose risk to at least some coarse fish species in some locations.

The Environment Agency will continue to consider new information on the close season as and when it becomes available.