How do you apply for an environmental permit?

If you operate a regulated facility in England and Wales you must have an environmental permit.

Who needs an environmental permit?

To apply for an environmental permit you must complete an application form provided by your regulator.

Where to find application forms
Who is your regulator?

Pre-application discussions with your regulator

You can contact your regulator to discuss your application before you submit it. The Environment Agency recommends that you do this if you want to apply for a bespoke permit.

You should read all relevant guidance before you contact your regulator. This should answer most of your questions, particularly if you are applying for a standard permit.

Pre-application discussions can help you:

check whether you need an environmental permit
complete your application correctly
if you have a novel, complex or innovative process.

If your facility is controversial or may affect your local community, you should also consider engaging with interested parties before you submit your application.

The Environment Agency has produced a pre-application flowchart to help you through their application process.

Environment Agency: Pre-application decision flowchart (Adobe PDF - 73KB)
Environment Agency: Contact us
Contact your local council

Who can apply for a permit?

You can only apply for an environmental permit if you are the operator of a regulated facility. You are the operator if you have, or will have, control over operations and the authority and ability to:

ensure that your facility complies with all permit conditions
manage day-to-day site operations
employ key staff and have incompetent staff removed
make investment or financial decisions that affect the performance of your facility
ensure that your facility is suitably controlled in an emergency.

If more than one operator runs different parts of a regulated facility that needs an environmental permit, each operator must have a separate environmental permit. The applications must clearly identify which operator has responsibility over which regulated facility.

If the operator is made up of more than one holder who exercise joint control over the one facility, they may be able to apply jointly for a single environmental permit.

To find out more see the Environment Agency’s regulatory guidance note on operators.

Environment Agency: RGN1 understanding the meaning of operator (Adobe PDF - 315KB)

Where to find application forms

If the Environment Agency is your regulator, you can download application forms from the Environment Agency website. You will be able to apply for an environmental permit online from summer 2010.

Environment Agency: Making an application

If your local council is your regulator, you can get application forms from them.

Contact your local council

What must you include in your application?

If you apply for a new environmental permit, you must complete sections A, F and the appropriate sections of Part B of the application.

The application form will ask you:

what type of application you are making, eg is it for a standard permit or a bespoke permit
if you have a case reference number, eg you may have one if you have had discussions with your regulator
your name and address, eg are you applying as an individual or a company
who can be contacted about your application
your site’s name and address
a map or plan showing your site’s boundaries highlighted in green (except for mobile plant)
about your ability to be an operator, eg your technical skills and details of any relevant convictions
the activities that your regulated facility will carry out.

You must also be able to show that you are competent to be an operator. To find out more, see our guidance on how to comply with your environmental permit.

The Environment Agency has produced guidance on how to complete your application. It also has a checklist on how to get your application right the first time.

Environment Agency: Application forms and guidance
Environment Agency: How to get your application right the first time (Adobe PDF - 67KB)

How much does it cost to apply for a permit?

If you apply to the Environment Agency for an environmental permit, your application fee will depend on the nature of your facility:

Tier 1 low risk facilities: currently no charge.
Tier 2 medium risk facilities: fixed charges.
Tier 3 high risk facilities: charges based on the operational risk appraisal (OPRA).

The Environment Agency has reduced most of its application fees for the 2010/11 period.

Environment Agency: Environmental permitting charges
Environment Agency: Operational risk appraisal (OPRA)

If you apply to your local authority for an environmental permit, your application fee from April 2010/11 will be approximately:

£3,218 for part A(2) activities
£1,579 for part B activities, unless your activity is a reduced fee activity where the application fee will be between £148 and £346.

Defra: Local authority regulation

Your regulator will also charge you an annual subsistence fee to cover its regulatory costs.

In this guideline: