Relief for country householders on septic tanks threat

THOUSANDS of country householders have been promised a review of a new law requiring them to register their back-garden sewage disposal systems for inspection – which would put them at risk of having to upgrade.

Word had got out that septic tanks and variations of them – small sewage treatment plants which eventually discharge into the ground – would have to be registered from next January but there have been no notifications from the Environment Agency.

The CLA, the country land and business association, called on the agency for a statement yesterday – and was told the whole scheme had been put on hold pending a review.

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Dorothy Fairburn, regional director of the CLA for Yorkshire, said the mass registration proposal was “bureaucratic gold-plating” of a requirement of the European Union Water Framework Directive.

She said: “If you have a septic tank, you are exempt from sewage charges, so there is no need to ask people to come forward to register and make a huge amount of work for everybody involved. But it is not just the compiling of the register that concerns us. Our concern is that registration will inevitably be followed by inspection and inspections will lead to a lot of people being required to instal a new system costing up to £15,000.

“We do not believe that small septic tanks in remote locations are doing much harm to the environment and we suggest that Defra and the Environment Agency need to concentrate on dealing with problems where they have problems rather than trying to micro-manage a system which generally works perfectly well.”

The Environment Agency said the requirement to register small domestic sewage discharges was a result of regulations drawn up under the previous government.

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“Registration was considered to provide the lightest touch approach to meet legal obligations. However, we are now undertaking a joint review with Government on the requirement. Defra will announce details of a public consultation on the options in the next few weeks.”

Miss Fairburn said: “It is obviously good to get such an immediate response but the requirements of the Water Framework Directive remain and will have to be implemented in some way. Our job now is to make sure that whatever is proposed next is proportionate.”

The Environment Agency estimates England and Wales have 300,000 septic tanks, for about a million people. Another rural solution to not being connected to a main sewer is the cess pit, which simply fills up and is pumped out by a contractor. Because they do not discharge into the ground, cess pits are not affected by the new regulations.

Scotland only requires septic tanks to be registered when a property changes hands or when a problem arises.