15.—(1) Provided that consent has been obtained from the relevant person pursuant to paragraph (3) the undertaker may use any watercourse or any public sewer or drain for the drainage of water in connection with the carrying out or maintenance of the authorised development and for that purpose may lay down, take up and alter pipes and may, on any land within the Order limits, make openings into, and connections with, the watercourse, public sewer or drain.
(2) Any dispute arising from the making of connections to or the use of a public sewer or drain by the undertaker pursuant to paragraph (1) is to be determined as if it were a dispute under section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991(1) (right to communicate with public sewers).
(3) The undertaker must not discharge any water into any watercourse, public sewer or drain except with the consent of the person to whom it belongs; and, such consent may be given subject to such terms and conditions as that person may reasonably impose, but is not to be unreasonably withheld.
(4) The undertaker must not make any opening into any public sewer or drain except—
(a)in accordance with plans approved by the person to whom the sewer or drain belongs, but such approval is not to be unreasonably withheld; and
(b)where that person has been given the opportunity to supervise the making of the opening.
(5) The undertaker must not, in carrying out or maintaining works pursuant to this article, damage or interfere with the bed or banks of any watercourse forming part of a main river.
(6) The undertaker must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that any water discharged into a watercourse or public sewer or drain pursuant to this article is as free as may be practicable from gravel, soil or other solid substance, oil or matter in suspension.
(7) Nothing in this article overrides the requirement for an environmental permit under regulation 12 (1) (b) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010(2).
(8) If a person who receives an application for consent under paragraph (3) or approval under paragraph 4 (a) fails to notify the undertaker of a decision within 28 days of receiving an application that person is deemed to have granted consent or given approval, as the case may be.
(9) In this article—
(a)“public sewer or drain” means a sewer or drain which belongs to Natural Resources Wales, an internal drainage board, a local authority, a sewerage undertaker or an urban development corporation; and
(b)other expressions, excluding watercourse, used both in this article and in the Water Resources Act 1991(3) have the same meaning as in that act.