Consultation on modernising environmental permitting for industry

Industry representatives have highlighted that for major new projects or significant transformations to existing sites, private investors or government will sometimes require that permits are in place prior to investing to reduce uncertainty. However, at this early stage of the process, the detailed design plans that are required to inform permitting are not generally in place, which means that developers may have to apply for a permit once based on a set of assumptions and then vary the permit further down the line when detailed design is finalised. This can involve a significant time and resource commitment by developers who effectively go through the permitting process twice. The EA currently offers a pre-application service, however this is advisory and does not provide indications to developers on whether permits will ultimately be approved. The EA also offers an optional paid-for ‘priority tracked service’, which provides early advice on permits and licenses and a single point of contact within the EA. 

We are interested in whether there are alternative permitting approaches where sufficient reassurance on permitting approval could be provided earlier in the process to derisk investment, with detailed design considerations coming later. It should however be noted that developers and investors will always have to bear a significant degree of risk, as it is only when detailed assessment is carried out that the acceptability of a proposal can definitively be determined. 

One such approach would be creating an optional new stage of outline permitting approval early in the process, based on the model of outline planning permission. While this could not definitively approve a project as detailed assessment would be required, it could set out that the regulator would be minded to approve a project for outline permitting if it complied with certain broader conditions based on an initial streamlined assessment. Significant further policy development would be required alongside regulators and industry to determine what this assessment could involve and how it could differ from the typical permitting process. It could however include commitments from the operator to apply BAT and initial assessment against local environmental constraints and limits. 

In helping us to decide whether approaches of this sort should be considered further, we are interested in views from investors on what kind of certainty they require with regards to permits to justify investment. We would then consider whether an outline permitting permission could realistically provide that degree of certainty without compromising the integrity of the permitting process. 

We are also interested in views from regulators, developers and operators on whether outline permit approvals could offer material benefits, given that it would add a new step into the permitting process which could create more work for operators and regulators.