Consultation: waste charges and hourly rates

The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a consultation on waste charges.

The consultation proposes to introduce new regulatory charges for specific waste activities as well as updating existing charging regimes from April 2025.

Proposals

The EA is consulting on four key proposals:

• A waste crime levy of 10% on annual subsistence charges for certain waste permits, to enhance its efforts against waste crime

The proposed waste levy will generate income to help deal with waste crime. It will introduce additional charges relating to the regulation of activities covered by the Environmental Permitting Regulations for waste operations. A 10% additional levy is proposed to apply to annual subsistence charges of permits for ‘waste transfer treatment’ and ‘landfill and deposit for recovery’. It is calculated that a 10% levy would be expected to generate approximately £3.2 million additional income each year. This would enable the EA to increase its waste enforcement activity by around 30%.

• New and updated hourly rates (time and materials charging) to ensure the EA can continue to recover the costs of regulatory activities

The EA uses hourly rate charging when additional time or materials costs arise for specific regulatory activities that are not already accounted for within the cost of a permit. The EA states the proposed charges will enable it to recover the cost of (amongst others): supplementary regulatory activities associated with subsistence requirements for an environmental permit; regulatory activities for the control of major accident hazards (COMAH); water pollution incident activities; definition of waste service; advice on voluntary remediation of land affected by legacy pollution.

New hourly rates proposed are:

• • Post suspension notice activity: £100 (previously £84)
  • Radioactive substances (nuclear and non-nuclear activity): £353 for work carried out by nuclear specialists (currently £286)
  • Work in relation to radioactive substances permits: £130 (currently £125)
  • Nuclear off-site emergency plan testing (under REPPIR): proposal to introduce three new hourly rates £353, £130 and £100
  • Control of major accident hazards (COMAH): £100 for incident exercise activity (from £84)
  • Water pollution incident activity: £100 (previously £84)
  • Definition of waste: £130 (currently £125)
  • Hydraulic fracturing plans: £130 (currently £125)
  • Planning activity (work of Sustainable Places teams): £115 (from £100)
  • Voluntary remediation (legacy pollution): propose to charge an upfront fee of £500+VAT for up to five hours of initial advice, with additional time charged at £100+VAT
  • A waste fee for intervention to recover the cost of regulation where operators lack authorisation.

The EA states this will enable it to recover the costs of regulating waste operations where it suspects an operator lacks the required authorisation. This is a new charge that will apply if the EA reasonably suspects a waste operation is breaching the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR) or Environmental Protection Act (EPA), the operator will have to pay for the time we take to identify the suspected breach and help put things right.

The proposed rate is £100 per hour plus the cost of any materials.

• Registration and compliance charges for waste exemptions. For farmers, a reduced compliance charge is proposed for a set of 15 common on-farm waste exemptions.

Rationale

The EA states the needs of the legitimate waste industry has grown in recent years. This makes it necessary to review the service charges to ensure the EA can continue to deliver a robust and efficient regulatory service.

The proposals suggested will fund more regulatory work to target waste crime and the revenue generated through charges will support stronger enforcement, better customer support, improved digital systems and clearer guidance.

The Deputy Director of Waste and Resources Regulation at the EA said:

“It’s our job to be fair and transparent with the businesses we regulate for the work we do.

Waste exemption abuse across industry sectors, increasing costs of regulation and illegal waste activity, is making it harder to meet the cost of these challenges.

Our proposals will see more investment in our services, which is crucial in protecting legitimate businesses, tackling waste crime and reducing environmental damage. We encourage interested parties to respond to help shape the future of their industry.”

Waste crime

The proposed new charges will help to fund regulatory work targeting waste crime. Illegal waste activity costs nearly £1 billion to the taxpayer and legitimate industry, and undercuts legitimate businesses.  

Illegally dumped waste can impose significant costs on legitimate private landowners and rural businesses. The EA states it is committed to working closely with these groups to tackle the impacts of waste crime.

The EA encourages the waste, water and farming sectors to have their say on charges associated with waste activities.

The consultation closes on 20^th January 2025. It can be accessed here.

Clyde & Co are specialists in dealing with issues relating to regulatory changes, and we are continually monitoring developments around all of the UK regulators. For more on this and other regulatory topics, you can read all of our previous articles here, and if you have any questions about this subject you can contact Rod Hunt or any of our Safety, Health, Environment and Regulatory team.