Common confusion
No. There is no SuDS Approving Body in England, and there is no separate SuDS approval to apply for. Surface water drainage is dealt with through the planning system, with the lead local flood authority consulted on it.
This comes up constantly, and for a good reason: a fair number of council websites still describe a SuDS Approving Body, some in the present tense. If you have read that on your own authority’s pages and concluded you need an extra consent, you are reading text written in anticipation of a change that has not happened.
Position at the time of writing (September 2026). Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 remains uncommenced in England. It was commenced in Wales in 2019, which is why SuDS Approving Bodies exist there and not here. We review this page when the position changes.
What Schedule 3 would have done
Schedule 3 would have created a SuDS Approving Body at county or unitary level, giving drainage its own statutory approval separate from planning permission. Construction could not lawfully begin until the SAB had approved the drainage, and the SAB would have adopted and maintained systems meeting the national standards.
That is the regime operating in Wales. It is not the regime in England.
Why the confusion is so widespread
Implementation has been announced, reviewed and deferred repeatedly over more than a decade, and authorities wrote guidance in expectation of it. Some of that guidance is still published.
The recent sequence is worth knowing, because it explains why the answer has stayed the same through a lot of noise:
- June 2025 — new national standards for sustainable drainage systems were introduced
- July 2025 — the Independent Water Commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe, recommended making SuDS mandatory by commencing Schedule 3
- During the Planning and Infrastructure Bill — an amendment to bring Schedule 3 into force was opposed by the government and withdrawn
- February 2026 — a House of Commons research briefing confirmed the schedule remains uncommenced
The government’s stated position is that better delivery of SuDS is achievable by improving planning policy, adoption and maintenance rather than by commencing Schedule 3. The draft NPPF published in December 2025 is consistent with that: it proposes referring directly to the national SuDS standards through planning rather than creating a separate consent. See what the NPPF requires now and what the draft proposes.
So what actually applies in England
- Surface water drainage is assessed through the planning application, by the local planning authority
- The lead local flood authority is a statutory consultee on major development and sets local standards
- Drainage is normally secured by planning condition — which is why so many permissions carry a pre-commencement surface water condition
- There is no separate approval to obtain, and no SAB to apply to
- Adoption is arranged privately, or through a Section 104 agreement with the water company, or through Section 38 where the drainage serves an adopted road
The practical consequence is that nobody adopts your SuDS by default. Under Schedule 3 the SAB would have taken on qualifying systems; without it, long-term maintenance has to be arranged deliberately — which is exactly what the maintenance condition on your permission is asking you to demonstrate.
The one consent people genuinely do miss
There is no SuDS approval, but there is a separate consent that catches people out, and it is a real legal requirement: ordinary watercourse consent. If your drainage discharges into a ditch, brook or culvert, or your works obstruct one, you need it in addition to planning permission.
That is the consent to worry about — not a SAB approval that does not exist.
If your site is in Wales
Then the position is genuinely different, and SAB approval does apply. We work in England, so we would not be the right people for that scheme — and we would tell you so rather than take it on.
Written September 2026. National policy on this has changed direction several times, so if you are reading this much later, check the current position — or ask us and we will tell you where it stands.