Reporting an issue with an ordinary watercourse

Lancashire County Council has powers to take enforcement action in connection with ordinary watercourses. The purpose of enforcement is to ensure there is proper flow of water in an ordinary watercourse unless the impediment, such as a nature-based solution, is consented and designed to impede the flow.

To achieve this, Lancashire County Council will apply the enforcement prioritisation policy (PDF 312 KB) to determine when it will exercise its power(s) to rectify unlawful and damaging or potentially damaging work to an ordinary watercourse.

You can read more about our approach to enforcement in our ordinary watercourse regulation page containing policies and ordinary watercourse regulation guidance.

If you wish to report an issue with an ordinary watercourse, please first check the watercourse classification.

To report an issue on a watercourse classified as a 'main river', please report this directly to the Environment Agency.

To report an issue on a watercourse classified as an 'ordinary watercourse', please contact us.