The Environment Agency has extended the deadline to submit responses to its current river basin planning consultation Challenges and Choices by five months because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The new date for final submissions is 24 September 2020.

The current river basin management plans, which were published in February 2016, must be reviewed and updated every 6 years under the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

The Environment Agency is seeking views on the challenges England’s surface waters face and the choices needed to help tackle those challenges.

The Agency is seeking views on the challenges that limit the benefits society gets from the water environment in river basin districts in England and the best way to address these issues.

The consultation covers all the river basin districts (RBDs) that are entirely in England, and the Severn and Northumbria RBDs which lie partly in Wales and Scotland respectively.

The Environment Agency will use the information gathered through the consultation to help it update the current river basin management plans, followed by publication the draft plans and a further consultation.

The responses will also be used to help the Agency consider how some of the current approaches to the management of water in England will need to change in response to a changing climate and a growing population.

The consultation sets out a series of questions on the following issues:

• Climate and biodiversity crisis    
• Challenge 1: Changes to water levels and flows
• Challenge 2: Chemicals in the water environment            
• Challenge 3: Invasive non-native species             
• Challenge 4: Physical modifications         
• Challenge 5: Plastics pollution    
• Challenge 6: Pollution from abandoned mines   
• Challenge 7: Pollution from agriculture and rural areas   
• Challenge 8: Pollution from towns, cities and transport 
• Challenge 9: Pollution from water industry wastewater
• Catchment partnership working
• Who pays?

To date the Environment Agency has received a total of 335 responses, details of which are published alongside the consultation.

Click here to access the consultation online.