The Reservoirs Act (Northern Ireland) 2015

Abstract

The 1975 Reservoir Act (1975) does not extend to Northern Ireland (NI) and there is currently no regulation of reservoir safety, which means that there is no statutory requirement for routine inspection or maintenance of the 151 reservoirs identified as holding 10 000 cubic metres or more of water. In early 2011, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) Rivers Agency, the flood risk and drainage authority for NI, established a Bill Team to take forward reservoir safety policy development. The draft legislation was approved by the NI Executive in November 2013 and was subsequently introduced in the NI Assembly in January 2014 as ‘The Reservoirs Bill’. The Bill has been scrutinised by the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee and this paper outlines their findings. The legislation cleared ‘Final stage’ of the legislative process on 24 June 2015. The Bill received Royal Assent on 24 July and is now known as the Reservoirs Act (Northern Ireland) 2015.