Regulation 9 Environmental objectives: sustainable human development activities
For the purposes of these Regulations and Part 1 of the Act (in particular section 9(7)(a)), a failure to prevent deterioration from high status to good status of a body of surface water is not a breach of the environmental objectives set pursuant to regulation 3(1) if the failure is the result of new sustainable human development activities, and the following conditions are met—
all practicable steps are taken to mitigate the adverse impact on the status of the body of water;
the activities are of overriding public interest and/or the benefits to the environment and to society of achieving the environmental objectives are outweighed by the benefits of the activities to human health, to the maintenance of human safety, or to sustainable development;
the beneficial objectives served by those activities cannot for reasons of technical feasibility or disproportionate costs, be achieved by other means, which are a significantly better environmental option; and
the nature of the activities are set out and explained in the river basin management plan (or the next update of it) and the environmental objectives are reviewed every 6 years.