Guidance

Developments requiring planning permission and environmental permits: Environment Agency approach

How the Environment Agency responds to planning consultations that include activities permitted under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 and other consenting regimes.

• From: Environment Agency
• Published: 9 October 2012
• Last updated: 19 October 2026
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  1. 19 October 2026

     This publication has been updated to reflect current legislation, policy and guidance. Updated how the Environment Agency actively responds to planning consultations that include activities permitted under the Environmental Permitting (England & Wales) Regulations 2016. Added information about the 3 positions that we can take when responding to planning consultations for applications that require an environmental permit, the pre-application services we offer, and how we consider NSIPs. Updated the publishing format to HTML (web content).

  2. 9 October 2012

     First published.

Documents

How the Environment Agency responds to developments requiring planning permission and environmental permits

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Details

This guidance describes:

• the relationship between land-use planning and environmental permitting regimes
• how the Environment Agency responds to planning applications which may require an environmental permit (or permits)
• the 3 different positions we can take for applications requiring a permit

It explains when the Environment Agency will advise an applicant to use:

• parallel tracking of planning and permit applications
• the pre-application advice services

It also covers how we consider Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).