Environment Agency updates its regulatory decision appeals procedure

The Environment Agency (“EA”) has recently made further amendments to the requirements which operators must conform to when using the regulatory decision appeals procedure.

The regulatory decision appeals (“RDA”) process enables persons regulated by the EA to submit a regulatory appeal against a recent regulatory decision (being a decision taken in the exercise of a regulatory function, which is adverse to a regulated person) that the EA has made and /or challenge the body if it fails to act in line with the Regulators’ Code. Since the EA’s guidance on the RDA procedure was published in December 2024, the EA has made several revisions to the requirements, notably limiting the scope of the procedure (for example, withdrawing its previous position that rejecting an enforcement undertaking offer constituted a regulatory decision and tightening the accepted format of a stage 2 appeal).

The guidance now requires that a stage 2 appeal:

1. is “concise and factual”, with a limit of up to 15,000 characters;
2. is “supported by directly relevant, reasonable and proportionate evidence”, with no more than 10 supporting documents allowed; and
3. includes all the information necessary for the appeal. The guidance expressly states that information sent later “may not be considered as part of the appeal”.

Given that the character limit equates to approximately 2,500 to 2,750 words, there is a question around to what extent this, and the restriction on lodging supporting documents, might impede an applicant’s ability to properly state its case, particularly if the facts or evidence are complex or require substantive background information.

The changes also follow a revision to the EA’s customer service commitment in April 2026, with new sections added on ‘What [the EA] expect from you' and 'Managing unacceptable and unreasonable customer behaviour'. Examples of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ (which the report states may result in restricted contact or the ending of the EA’s services to the customer) are listed as including:

• “persisting after matters are closed – carrying on with complaints or demands after all formal processes are complete;
• insisting on irrelevant issues – pushing us to act on matters outside our responsibilities;
• excessive contact – overwhelming our resources with repeated contact or unnecessary detail;
• false or incomplete information – withholding key facts or providing misleading information”.

These statements demonstrate that the EA is tightening the rules around customer interaction (which could have been influenced by the number of regulatory appeals it was seeing since the guidance was published a year and a half ago). Given how broad the examples of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ are (the standard for which will, we assume, be determined by the EA), operators will need to be mindful of the EA’s recently stated position when approaching interactions with the regulator, including RDAs, going forward. 

We have broad experience in lodging appeals using the RDA procedure.  In our experience, these are often complex and to be successful requires detailed evidence and supporting information.  These changes certainly will mean that it will be harder to use this route to challenge the EA.

If you would like to discuss what implications the amended guidance may have on your business, please contact a member of the Environment Team.