Explanatory note
(This note is not part of the Regulations)
Part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (“the Act”) provides for the control of pollution from certain processes prescribed under the Act. It also provides that the release of certain prescribed substances into the environment must be controlled. In Scotland the regulatory body for processes prescribed for central, rather than local authority, control is either the chief inspector of Her Majesty’s Industrial Pollution Inspectorate or the river purification authority. The main purpose of these Regulations is to prescribe the criteria for determining which is to be the enforcing authority under Part I of the Act in any particular case.
Regulation 3 provides for the enforcing authority to be determined as follows:—
where the process releases a prescribed substance to air (whether or not it also releases a prescribed substance to land and/or water) or where it releases a prescribed substance to land but not to water, the enforcing authority is the chief inspector;
where the process releases a prescribed substance to water only or to both water and land, the enforcing authority is the river purification authority in whose area the process is situated.
The Regulations also provide for consultation in certain circumstances between whichever of the two is determined to be the enforcing authority and the other (the consulted authority). By virtue of regulation 4, the consulted authority must be notified of an application for authorisation or for variation of the conditions of an authorisation within 14 days of receipt by the enforcing authority. Any comments made by the consulted authority within a specified period, which comments must deal with the matters mentioned in regulation 4(2), must be considered by the enforcing authority in determining the application.
Regulation 5 provides that the consulted authority may require inclusion of conditions in an authorisation which relate to the protection of the environmental medium for which it is primarily responsible unless the enforcing authority considers that their inclusion will conflict with the objective specified in section 7(2) of the Act, as read with section 7(7). That objective is relevant where the process is likely to involve release to more than one environmental medium and is essential to minimise the pollution which may be caused to the environment as a whole, having regard to the best practicable environmental option available as respects the substances to be released.
Regulation 6 requires the enforcing authority to notify the consulted authority of its intention to take enforcement action and gives the consulted authority an opportunity to specify additional grounds for such action. This requirement to consult may be dispensed with if the enforcing authority considers that delay could result in serious pollution of the environment.
Regulation 7 requires the consulted authority to be advised of the transfer of an authoris ation within 14 days of its being notified to the enforcing authority.