Farmers asked about their views on EA charges increase
24th April 2025
Farmers have been asked to have their say on a proposal to increase the Environment Agency’s regulatory charges.
The EA said that the overall costs of employing its staff have increased due to the government-approved pay award and employer National Insurance contributions.
In addition, it also needs to cover increased costs relating to corporate service and IT systems development costs.
As a result, the Agency is consulting on a one-off increase for some charges (in the range of 7.5% – 14%) in the Environmental Permitting and waste charging schemes in the current period 2025-2026.
From 2026, the agency proposes to update all charges in line with inflation.
READ MORE: EA warns farmers to check if they are using more water than allowed
How is the increase going to affect farmers?
The agency’s proposed increases will affect a number of application or annual charges for permit and licensed activities that farmers undertake.
Some fees are excluded from the changes, but this does affect:
- abstraction licence application fees (9.5 %) and annual fees (10 %)
- poultry permitting annual fees (11.5 %)
- flood risk activity application and annual fees (7.5 %)
- landspreading of sheep dip application (9 %) and annual fees (11 %)
- biowaste (composting and AD) annual fees (14 %).
Have your say
A spokesperson for NFU said: “We are keen to hear from members across all sectors to ensure our members’ views are fairly reflected.
“Your views will be shared as part of the NFU’s submission to the Environment Agency’s ‘cost of service’ consultation.
“All responses provided will be anonymised and aggregated to ensure no individual can be identified.”
Upload your views here.
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