Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018: proposed amendments

Overview

The Environmental Authorisation (Scotland) Regulations 2018 amendment will bring together all the permissioning arrangements for Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA’s) four main regulatory regimes (water, waste, radioactive substances and Pollution Prevention and Control) into an integrated structure and under a single standardised procedure.

These authorisations are an integral tool in SEPA’s approach to controlling and minimising the impact of certain activities on the environment. The procedures and requirements associates with them, however, are currently inconsistent across different regulatory regimes. This is unnecessarily complicated, difficult to understand and onerous to administer, both for SEPA and business.

The radioactive substances regime was the first to be incorporated into the integrated authorisation framework, in 2018. This consultation sets out to complete the migration of the other three regimes (water, waste, and Pollution Prevention and Control), and proposes new activities to be regulated under the new regime.

Please read the consultation paper. The consultation paper contains the background information for this consultation. You may find it useful to read or refer to while responding.

SEPA have a consultation running concurrently on the “Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018: Proposed types of authorisation for waste, water and industrial activities.” This will support implementation of the framework. SEPA’s consultation will remain open until 12 April 2024.

Why your views matter

We would like your feedback to ensure that the integrated framework is fit for purpose by incorporating SEPA’s four main regulatory regimes (water, waste, radioactive substances and Pollution Prevention and Control).

Your feedback is also sought on the proposed new activities and amendments to the common prodcedures that we will include into the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018.

This consultation also seeks your views to explore how ammonia emission from livestock farms might be better managed and reduced.