The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.
There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.
Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.
Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.
General
Enquiry
Can section 53 (s53) of the Planning Act 2008 (PA2008) authorise the pumping of water?
Advice given
The Inspectorate cannot provide legal advice on the scope of activities that s53 of the PA2008 can authorise, which will ultimately be decided by the courts. However, I hope the following comments are helpful, which are provided under section 51 PA2008.
As highlighted in our Advice Note 5: Section 53 – Rights of Entry, a person(s) may apply for authorisation from the Secretary of State for a right to enter land owned by third parties, in order to carry out surveys and take levels and/or in order to facilitate compliance with statutory provisions implementing the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive or Habitats Directive, under s53 of the PA2008.
The power of entry for those purposes includes the power to search and bore for limited reasons, i.e. to ascertain the nature of the subsoil or the presence of minerals or other matter in it and/or to take and process samples. Under section 53(3A) this includes “power to take, and process, samples of or from any of the following found on, in or over the land—
(a) water,
(b) air,
(c) soil or rock,
(d) its flora,
(e) bodily excretions, or dead bodies, of non-human creatures, or
(f) any non-living thing present as a result of human action.”
The Inspectorate notes that the powers to enter land under s53 are only available for the particular purposes set out in that section, and that whilst the drainage of boreholes made for those purposes is not precluded, this does not negate the need to obtain any relevant permits or licences that would otherwise be required for such an activity.
