Select Committee on Public Accounts Twenty-Fifth Report


2. The licensing of waste sites and activities

7. Licences set minimum standards for the operation of waste sites, for example, the types and quantities of waste to be accepted, security arrangements, ground engineering, emissions monitoring requirements, amenity management (dust, odours and pests) and the keeping of records.[8]

8. The Agency has been processing just 20% of new licence applications within its target of four months. The Agency planned to process applications more quickly by, for example, issuing model applications for operators to use as a guide to reduce errors at the application stage and by increased use of standard licences for low risk sites. However, processing times on applications were still not as fast as the Agency would like, and a backlog had already built up on relicencing sites under the new pollution, prevention and control regime.[9]

9. Prospective operators of new waste sites must obtain permission from the relevant planning authority before the Agency can issue a licence. The need to obtain planning permission before a licence could be issued contributed to the long delays in the issue of new licences.[10]

10. The Agency confirmed that its role in issuing a licence was to protect human health and the environment. Proximity to housing was considered by planning authorities and the Agency when deciding whether to issue or amend licences. However, the Agency considered that poor planning decisions in the past could make it difficult to solve the problems of nuisance sites, for example where housing developments had grown up after the site. The Agency also confirmed that in considering a licence application, it considered financial provisions and the technical competence of the proposed operator, and successful prosecutions for waste site offences but not breaches of a permit.[11]

11. The Agency had not, however, used its power to refuse licences to applicants with previous convictions for environmental offences. The Agency wanted to keep criminals out of the industry, and where existing licensees were convicted, to demand of the licensee why they should continue at the site or, if the problem was more endemic to the company, to be satisfied the problem had been overcome. The Agency noted that the Department's guidance, however, created a presumption in favour of the applicant, and required the Agency to take mitigating circumstances and future intent into account. The Department intended to amend its 1994 guidance to the Agency to emphasise that the test should be based on the "desirability" of granting a waste license to an applicant with relevant convictions. It nevertheless considered that the current guidance did not prevent the Agency from protecting or revoking licences. The Department recognised that the Agency might have difficulty applying the test in a fair and consistent manner that targeted the frequent offender without disadvantaging larger companies with many sites.[12]

12. On large scale composting activities the Agency said that its approach to regulation was based on the potential impact on local residents with breathing difficulties of fungal spores emitted during the process. The Agency required operators to demonstrate that they could control that risk. The Agency had not, however, considered the potential for spores to affect food crops growing near the site, which might result in economic loss to the farmer and the possibility of spores entering the human food chain.[13]


8   C&AG's Report, para 3.2 Back

9   ibid, para 3.17; Qq 161-162 Back

10   C&AG's Report, para 1.5, Figure 4; Qq 16, 20-29, 63 Back

11   Qq 2, 28 Back

12   C&AG's Report, para 2.26; Qq 15-19, 26-27, 129-130, 142-3, 156-157; Ev 20 Back

13   Qq 21, 59 Back


 
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