Successful Licence Validation For Our Client on the Border

We’ve achieved a great win on behalf of our client Radnor Hills Mineral Water Company Limited with the validation of their New Authorisations abstraction licence applications. This allows them to continue operations, maintain production and supply other water uses until determination has been completed. This was a particularly satisfying result for both Radnor Hills and Envireau Water for a few different reasons.

We’ve secured the only trans-boundary New Authorisations abstraction licence applications. As the Radnor Hills site is situated across the Welsh and English border we had to attain validation from not one, but two regulatory bodies and ensure that the applications were synchronised with both Natural Resources Wales and its English counterpart the Environment Agency.

As well as the client’s site sitting across the England/Wales border, this was a tricky application to build, as there are 15 water sources involved, many of which had no individual abstraction records, accessing two different aquifer systems, with 5 different water uses including domestic water supply to houses’ a range of agricultural activities, and water bottling which is Radnor Hills core business. Careful consideration of the approach and close consultation with the two regulatory bodies was needed to agree a common way forward.

As well as the challenge presented by the location and multiple sources, collating evidence on the historic abstraction of over 295,000m3/year and collating it in a way that was understandable across the sources, aquifers, uses and jurisdictions posed its own challenges.

William Watkins, Farmer and Managing Director of Radnor Hills on securing licence validation:

“We knew that obtaining validated abstraction licence applications for our boreholes after the New Authorisations legislation changes would be difficult. We’ve known of the reputation of Envireau Water for many years and had every confidence that they could find solutions to the challenges our site presents in successfully achieving valid applications. Our confidence in Envireau Water paid off, they liaised successfully with both Natural Resources Wales and the Environment Agency to get our applications validated, with time to spare. This has given me enormous peace of mind and has meant that it’s business as usual at Radnor”.

Envireau Water are specialists in the New Authorisations licensing process and have achieved the validation of over 100 applications since June 2018. If you have not attained validation of an existing abstraction by the 31st December 2019, have new water requirements or have extended your site you may be required to submit a ‘Day Job’ or ‘New Water’ application. If you would like information on how we can help, or discuss an application get in touch with us on 01332 871 882 or at info@envireauwater.co.uk.