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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is planning to replace the “slow and bureaucratic” abstraction system with a “modern and efficient” one.
Defra’s head of future water resource managing policy, Henry Leveson-Gower, said the reforms to the abstraction regime will make the system quicker and more responsive.
He told the Major Energy User’s Council’s water competition action group: “We have a very old regime and it hasn’t changed a huge amount since the 1960s. It is impossibly slow and bureaucratic.
“This is about moving to a more modern and a more efficient system with less bureaucratic red tape to allow us to get the most out of water.”
Leveson-Gower said the reforms to the system will allow water companies and other abstractors to be more responsive to prevailing weather conditions, for example by allowing water companies to fill their reservoirs during dry periods in the “brief spells following storms when the rivers are high”.
This is currently not possible because abstractors only have seasonal licences and are able to fill their reservoirs in the winter and not in the summer.
“Short term trading is not currently a possibility and can take three to four months,” he said. “When you’ve got weather changing and sudden shortages you need short term trading.”
He also stated that the reforms would be targeted in water stressed areas to minimise the costs. This means that the “sophisticated systems” will be developed for use in East Anglia and the south east of England where they will be the most beneficial.
Another key element of abstraction reform set to be introduced is an overhaul of the current “two tier” licensing system under which some abstractors have permanent licences and others have time-limited ones. Leveson-Gower said a single system of permits, that can be reviewed, will be introduced.
He added that the reforms are due to be considered by this government “soon” and that the legislation could be introduced as early as 2022.
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