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Discharges to surface water and groundwater: environmental permits

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ByEnvironment Agencycobalt_ridge_8a36f6

When you need an environmental permit to discharge liquid effluent or waste water to surface water or the ground, and how to apply.

Adapted edition

Environmental permit compliance
Document type
Reference Guide
Format
DOCX
Pages
12
Language
English
Version
1.0
Updated
2026-09-16
Category
Safety & operations
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0
Description

When you need an environmental permit to discharge liquid effluent or waste water to surface water or the ground, and how to apply. Consult the original guidance for current legal and operational details.

Contents
  • Check if the waste water is domestic sewage or trade effluent
  • When you do not need a permit
  • Exempt water discharge and groundwater activities
  • Discharges in sewered areas
  • Permits in sewered areas
  • For a single domestic property
  • If you're building a development of more than one property
  • If some or all of your discharge is from anything other than domestic properties
  • If you cannot connect to a public foul sewer
  • Trade effluent discharges
  • Planning new developments
  • Building and paying for a new sewer
  • Check that you're the 'legal operator'
  • Joint operators of one activity
  • If an operator dies
  • Fees and charges for permits
Source and licence
Discharges to surface water and groundwater: environmental permits

Environment Agency

Original source OGL-UK-3.0

AttributionEnvironment Agency, ‘Discharges to surface water and groundwater: environmental permits’ (updated 20 April 2026), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

ChangesNeutral text-only adaptation from the official GOV.UK Content API body: headings, paragraphs, ordered and unordered list items and clickable source-link destinations in an appendix preserved. Images, logos, page design, accessible-format request widgets and linked attachments excluded; normalised whitespace, invisible format marks and typography.

Version history
  • v1.016/09/2026
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