15.—(1) The Secretary of State 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 Secretary of State under 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 Secretary of State 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) The Secretary of State 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) The Secretary of State must not, in carrying out or maintaining works under the powers conferred by this article, damage or interfere with the bed or banks of any watercourse forming part of a main river.
(6) The Secretary of State 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 2010(2).
(8) In this article—
(a)“public sewer or drain” means a sewer or drain which belongs to the Homes and Communities Agency, the Environment Agency, an internal drainage board, a joint planning 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.
Section 106 was amended by section 35(1) and (8) 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. 2010/675, to which there are amendments not relevant to this Order.