The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a new consultation on its proposed approach to reserving water abstraction rights and its proposed decision-making framework.

Launching the consultation, the Agency explained that access to water resources, particularly reliable abstraction directly from the environment, will become more limited in the future and that without appropriate action, the country faces the prospects of trade-offs, including:

• limiting growth
• interruptions to water supply
• damage to the water environment
• limitations to food production
• reduced energy security, and
• a lack of water supply resilience

As the primary instrument to regulate abstraction activities, and the source of protected rights for licence holders, the current abstraction and impoundment licensing system is at the heart of water resources management.

The proposals in this consultation enhance how licensing decisions are made in several important ways:

1. They create a process for reserving abstraction rights early for strategic schemes ahead of their operation, providing certainty for major infrastructure projects. The current use of the abstraction licensing system does not easily allow for the reservation of abstraction rights for future strategic schemes. To support this, government and regulators collectively need to make sure that policies enable the delivery of strategic solutions. This will involve optimising the resilience and connectivity benefits that they bring, whilst managing the competitive and conflicting demands for water that their dominant size and long lead-time may cause.

2. They strengthen the linkage between water resources planning and abstraction licensing to ensure that decisions reflect a justification of need which has been assessed appropriately as part of a strategic planning process

3. They establish a transparent hierarchy for abstraction rights allocation when competing demands cannot be managed. This will support decisionmaking for infrastructure development in both the short-term and the long-term.

The consultation paper sets out the the current approach to reserving water abstraction rights, and the justification for changing the approach. The EA’s proposed framework is based on existing legislation.

The EA is seeking views on:

• the proposed approach to determine licence applications to reserve water abstraction rights for strategic water resources schemes
• the proposed approach to allocate reserved abstraction rights when there are competing demands for water
• Consider what measures may need to be put in place in the future (for example, new legislation or governance) to improve the allocation of water abstraction rights as pressures on water resources grow.
• Identify potential challenges or risks that could arise from implementing the proposed framework, and any suggestions for mitigation.

The consultation is focussed on regulating access to water directly from the environment and how the Environment Agency allocates water abstraction rights to new water resources proposals. It does not consider:

• prioritisation of who gets water from water company supplies
• the temporary reallocation of water abstraction rights during drought or prolonged dry weather
• the removal of or restriction of existing water abstraction rights due to non-use, under-use, or inefficient use of water
• the removal or modification of existing water abstraction rights due to the need to address unsustainable abstraction

The proposed framework reflects the EA’s remit and is focused on England. For cross border schemes with Wales or Scotland, the EA would consult the respective National Governments and environmental regulators

The consultation opened on 24 November 2025 and closes on 16 February 2026 – click here to access the consultation online.

Click here to download the consultation document