Discharge of water
16.—(1) Network Rail may use any watercourse or any public sewer or drain for the drainage of water in connection with the construction, operation or maintenance of the authorised works 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 Network Rail under paragraph (1) is to be determined as if it were a dispute under section 106 (right to communicate with public sewers) of the Water Industry Act 1991(1).
(3) Network Rail 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 must not be unreasonably withheld.
(4) Network Rail 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 must not be unreasonably withheld; and
(b)where that person has been given the opportunity to supervise the making of the opening.
(5) Network Rail must not, in the exercise of the powers conferred by this article, damage or interfere with the bed or banks of any watercourse forming part of a main river.
(6) Network Rail must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that any water discharged into a watercourse or public sewer or drain under the powers conferred by 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 2016(2).
(8) If a person who receives an application for consent or approval fails to notify Network Rail of a decision within 28 days of receiving an application for consent under paragraph (3) or approval under paragraph (4)(a) 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 a sewerage undertaker, the Environment Agency, an internal drainage board, or a local authority; 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.
1991 c. 56. Section 106 was amended by sections 35(1), 35(8) and 43(2) of, and Schedule 2 to, the Competition and Service (Utilities) Act 1992 (c. 43), sections 36(2) and 99 of the Water Act 2003 (c. 37) and paragraph 16(1) of Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 (c. 29).
S.I. 2016/1154, as amended by S.I. 2017/1012, S.I. 2017/1075, S.I. 2018/110, S.I. 2018/428 and S.I. 2018/575.