Discharge of water
14.—(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 exercise of the powers conferred by paragraph (1) to connect to or use a public sewer or drain shall be determined as if it were a dispute under section 106 of the Water Industry Act 1991(1).
(3) Network Rail shall 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 shall not be unreasonably withheld.
(4) Network Rail shall 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 shall not be unreasonably withheld; and
(b)where that person has been given the opportunity to supervise the making of the opening.
(5) Network Rail shall 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 shall 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 obviates 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 a sewerage undertaker, the Environment Agency, an internal drainage board or a local authority; and
(b)other expressions, excluding watercourses, used both in this article and in the Water Resources Act 1991 have the same meaning as in that Act.