The Environment Agency (EA) has today (25 September) begun consulting on its proposals to increase charges to waste facilities, installations and non-nuclear radioactive substances sites falling under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR) from the financial year 2015/16.

Introduced to help the agency recover costs in the face of biting budget cuts, charges to the above facilities will be raised by two per cent under EA proposals to help it ‘meet the requirements of the HM Treasury on managing [its] income and balances’.

However, it adds that the proposed increases ‘still allow for a real cost saving when compared with increases in CPI [the Consumer Price Index] over the period of 2011/12 to 2015/16’, amounting to more than four per cent for EPR installations and waste facilities, and almost seven per cent for non-nuclear.

It reads: ‘The Environment Agency has powers under legislation to recover the costs of some of its activities. Under these powers people and organisations that require an environmental permit pay for the cost of the service, rather than it being funded from general taxation.

‘We have reviewed current and future cost pressures and projected expenditure and we are again proposing no increase in charges for many of our schemes for 2015/16.

‘However, for EPR Installations, Waste facilities and Radioactive Substances Regulation (non nuclear) we need to increase our base charges to ensure we are adequately addressing deficits within those regimes and fully recovering our costs… We have only proposed charge increases where we are failing to recover our costs fully.’

New charges

As well as an increase in base charges, the EA is proposing to increase its charges to poorly-performing waste facilities and installations (those in compliance bands D, E or F), with those that have been in the lower zones for ‘two full years’ being charged a second tier of multipliers.

Those that remain in band D for two full years will be charged 200 per cent of compliance charges (up from the current 125 per cent), band E will charged 300 per cent (up from 150 per cent), and band F, 500 per cent (up from 300 per cent). The mid-year performance review for band F sites (that exists to see if the multiplier for the remainder of the year can be reduced) will also be removed.

These charges will reportedly help fund the EA’s regulatory work at these sites and recover some of the income needed to ‘utilise national resources and expertise to ensure improvement occurs’.

The second tier multiplier will continue to be applied until the site moves to compliance band A, B, or C.

Lastly, for new EPR and waste facilities, the EA is proposing to introduce a ‘permit commencement charge’ to ‘reflect the additional costs’ the EA incurs through the work undertaken in the first 12 months of a new permit being in place. The new charge will be an additional 40 per cent of the annual charge for the permit.

Funding waste crime action

Several points of interest are not addressed in this consultation (such as proposed charges for MRF inspections or cracking down on unregulated sites), but the EA has said that it is ‘exploring options’ for introducing a funding mechanism that would enable it to ‘respond effectively and pay for this work’

It states: ‘We are facing significantly increased levels of activity resulting from environmental incidents from a range of regulated and unregulated sites. We are exploring options for introducing a funding mechanism that would enable us to respond effectively and pay for this work. The aim will be to provide financial security to cover the costs of our interventions across a range of incident, compliance and enforcement situations.

‘We are considering options for this and how any mechanism would work in practice, the level of funding required and whether any restrictions would be necessary. We are also looking at how we could work in partnership with independent industry representatives on this.’

Those wishing to respond to the EA’s consultation on charges can do so online before 20 November 2014. The EA has said that it will publish its full response to the consultation ‘by March 2014’.