On 6th April 2010 the new Environmental Permitting (England and
Wales) Regulations 2010 are expected to come into force (the
"EP Regulations"). The EP Regulations will extend the
current system of Environmental Permitting to the licensing and
permitting schemes for 1) water discharge consenting, 2)
groundwater authorisations and 3) radioactive substances
authorisations.
This is part of the Government's second phase of the
introduction of a single permitting system in respect of
environment matters (EPP2). The idea behind the single permitting
system is to reduce the administrative burden of regulation without
comprising environmental standards. It does so by bringing together
previously separate, but largely comparable, regulatory regimes for
different environment matters. The first phase (EPP1) was
introduced in 2007 (in force in 2008) and brought together the
regulatory regimes for Pollution Prevention and Control and Waste
Management Licensing. The regime was
