Explanatory note

These Regulations prohibit any person from undertaking any activity which entails there being a notifiable quantity or more of a hazardous substance on any site unless that person has notified the Health and Safety Executive of the particulars specified in Part I of Schedule 2 to the Regulations at least 3 months before commencing that activity.

With certain specified exceptions, similar notification of the particulars specified in Part II of Schedule 2 is required for any pipe–line which contains a notifiable quantity or more of a hazardous substance.

Notification is also required of any changes in an activity previously notified which affects the particulars previously notified and where the quantity of the hazardous substance is increased to 3 or more times that originally notified the activity is required to be re–notified as if it were a new activity.

The Regulations provide that the enforcing authority for the relevant statutory provisions in relation to any site on which an activity which is required to be notified is carried on shall be the Health and Safety Executive and that after 1st February 1985 the Health and Safety Executive shall be the authority empowered to grant and enforce petroleum–spirit licences for such sites.

The Regulations contain a transitional provision which allows activities which are in existence at the time the Regulations come into operation or which are commenced within 6 months of that date to be carried on provided that they are duly notified within three months of the coming into operation of the Regulations.