Guidance, Regulations, Directives, Directions and EU activity

Guidance

Guidance notes for local authority-regulated industrial activities - A(2) and Part B activities:
- Process Guidance Notes - for Part B activities
- Sector Guidance Notes - for Part A(2) activities
- Air Quality (AQ) Notes - additional guidance notes
General guidance for local authorities - A(2) and Part B
Guidance for those operating A(1) activities - regulated by the Environment Agency
Guidance for the Environmental Permitting Regulations
CIEH Management Guide Sept 2004 (CIEH website, PDF 718 KB)

Regulations and changes to the regulations

The Environmental Permitting Regulations came into force on 6th April 2008 replacing the previous Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2000.

Amendments to the Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations (SI 2000/1973) to transpose parts of the Public Participation Directive - 23 June 2005 (PDF 9 KB)

The Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 is on the OPSI website.

EU Directives

European Directives which have been transposed into England and Wales Regulations.

Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Stage II petrol vapour recovery (PVRII)
The revised Large Combustion Plants Directive (LCPD, 2001/80/EC) on the air quality pages of this site. This Directive applies to combustion plants with a thermal output of greater than 50 MW
The Solvent Emissions Directive 1999/13/EC on the air quality pages of this site
Paints Directive 2004/42/CE on the air quality pages of this site
Waste Incineration Directive (PDF 800 KB)

EU activity

Correspondence, communications, consultations and registers generating from the EU which affects, impacts upon or has an interest in PPC.

Consultations on the European Commission's proposed Directive on Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) (Recast)

Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) applies to about 45,000 industrial installations in the EU (about 4,000 in the UK), ranging from refineries to breweries and from intensive pig farms to cement works. It requires each installation to have a permit containing emission limit values and other conditions based on the application of best available technique (BAT) and set to minimise emissions of pollutants likely to be emitted in significant quantities to air, water or land. Permit conditions also have to address energy efficiency, waste minimisation, prevention of accidental emissions, and site restoration.

The Commission launched in November 2005 a review of the IPPC Directive. The general objective of the review was stated as `to evaluate the scope to improve the functioning of the Directive and its interaction with other legislation, in particular related to industrial emissions, while not altering the main underlying principles and the level of ambition set in the Directive.

The review culminated in the publication on 21 December 2007 of a Commission Communication accompanying the Commission’s proposal for a Directive `on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control) (recast), which in turn was accompanied by an impact assessment.

In May and June 2008 Defra held four consultations to inform the development of a formal UK Government position. The consultation documents are available on the National Archives website:

Consultation on the European Commission's proposed Directive on Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) (Recast)

The following table was submitted to the European Commission at their request and updates the table of permitting progress as of 30 October 2007 submitted to the Commission. By 30 April 2008, permits remained outstanding in respect of 4 cases, which were all related to permits for landfills:

Table of permitting progress as of 30 April 2008 (PDF 30 KB)
Under the IPPC Directive, all existing IPPC installations had to be permitted by 30 October 2007. The table below, which was sent to the European Commission, in summary shows that, at that date there were 3,974 IPPC installations in the UK. Permits remained outstanding in respect of 215 (5.4%) of these. By 11 January 2008, the number outstanding had dropped to 142 and draft permits had been issued in nearly all these cases. Table of Permitting Progress (PDF 20 KB)

Table of Permitting Progress (PDF 20 KB)
UK Government report to the European Commission on implementation of Directive 96/61/EC concerning IPPC (PDF 128 KB)
Launch of the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (EPER) (PDF 17 KB) - February 2004
New European Register - European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (on Europa website) - January 2006

Page last modified: 29 July 2009

Pollution

Pollution Prevention and Control