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Standard Rules for the Environmental Permitting Regulations, Consultation No.3

We are seeking your views on sixteen new or revised sets of rules for standard permits for waste operations.

Start date: 5 June 2009
Closing date: 28 August 2009

Background information

The Government consulted on changes to waste exemptions and this consultation ended in October 2008. The consultation suggested that a number of existing exemptions could be replaced with Standard Permits and some would need bespoke permits. To date the Government has not issued its response to the consultation comments and has not indicated whether it will move these exempt operations into permitting.

Our consultation on the standard rules does not commit the Government to any changes; it invites comments on the permits that we intend to apply in the event that the waste activities identified in this consultation are made subject to the permitting requirements of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 (EP Regulations).

We have already carried out some informal consultation on the development of the standard rules with the affected industries through a series of workshops and correspondence.

This formal consultation is your chance to influence the standard rules and generic risk assessments that could control the parts of waste management activities that are currently exempt from the Environmental (EP) Regulations, if the Exemption Review moves these activities into permitting.

The exempt activities that these rules are intended to partially replace are:

  • Paragraphs 6, 7 and 28 (land-spreading)
  • Paragraph 9 (land restoration and reclamation)
  • Paragraph 12 (composting)
  • Paragraph 13 (waste treatment)
  • Paragraph 19 (construction)
  • Paragraph 45 (scrap metal)

We are also taking this opportunity to consult on new standard rules to cover anaerobic digestion activities —  including treatment and storage.

Consultation documents

Please note that the provision of rule sets; SR2009No20, SR2009No21 SR2009No22 and the amendments to SR2008No21 is not dependent on the Government response to the Exemption Review consultation.

Standard Rules 

Generic Risk Assessments 

Feedback form

Frequently asked questions

Pro-forma

How to respond

You have until 28 August 2009 to send us your comments. We will not be able to take into account comments received after this date.

  • Send us your comments on a separate document — do not use tracked changes.You can use our Feedback form (Word, 61KB) to respond to us.
  • Make sure your response can be read by Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat.
  • Email your response to Elena Williams by the closing date.

What happens next?

Your comments will help determine how the formerly exempt activities from the EP Regulations will be controlled by Standard Rules Permits.

We will consider all the responses before publishing the final standard rules and generic risk assessments later in 2009.

We will publish a summary consultation document that outlines the key issues raised by the responses to the draft standard rules and generic risk assessments and also the consultation questions.