The Response to the Committee on Climate Change Report (Extension of Period) Order 2024 will amend the Climate Change Act 2008 on 14 October 2024.
This legislation applies across the UK.
What will change?
The deadline for the Secretary of State to respond to the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report for 2023 has been deferred to 19 December 2024.
This delayed response deadline follows prior delays in 2022 and 2023.
Background
Section 37 of the Climate Change Act 2008 set a deadline of 15 October in each year for the Secretary of State to respond to the Climate Change Committee’s annual progress report.
The 2024 annual progress report was published in July 2024 and was covered within the July monthly update.
New publications this month:
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY, SCOTTISH ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY (SEPA), NATURAL RESOURCES WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (NIEA)
Extension to ESOS Action Plan Deadline
The Environment Agency has deferred the ESOS action plan submission deadline until 5 March 2025. This deadline was originally 5 December 2024.
The deferred deadline is due to a delay in updating the MESOS digital service to allow action plans to be submitted.
DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DEFRA), WELSH GOVERNMENT, ENVIRONMENT AGENCY AND NATURAL RESOURCES WALES
Materials facilities: waste sampling and reporting from October 2024
This guidance now reflects that the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales can be notified that you are operating a materials facility via an online system.
Separate guidance also covers the sampling self-assessment and notification duties in Wales.
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY AND DEFRA
Flood risk activities: environmental permits
A range of updates have been made to this guidance.
DEFRA
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG): Irreplaceable habitat
This guidance has been updated for clarity purposes. Duties are unaffected.
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
Environmental permits and abstraction licences: tables of charges
The tables of charges has been updated to reflect changes up to 1 October 2024.
When electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) becomes waste (WEEE)
Information is provided on the classification of WEEE, including how to determine when an organisation is dealing with EEE or WEEE. Controls that apply to exporting all waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) will change on 1 January 2025.
MCERTS: standards for environmental data acquisition and handling systems
This document has been updated to correct an error.
Guidance on Monitoring Ambient Air
A series of new guidance documents concern ambient air monitoring:
Regulatory Position Statements (RPSs)
Five new RPSs and two updated RPSs were published during September 2024:
PLANNING INSPECTORATE
Guidance on National Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs)
The following new guidance documents concern elements of the NSIP consenting regime, many of which are relevant to the environment:
MINISTRY OF HOUSING, COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Updated Building Regulations Approved Documents in England
The following approved documents were updated in September 2024:
WELSH GOVERNMENT
Clean Air Plan for Wales: Update report on progress against actions
A progress report has been provided against the Clean Air Plan for Wales.
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT
Green industrial strategy
This strategy identifies priority areas for Scotland to grow industries in the transition to net zero.
Climate change: Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029
This plan states actions the Scottish Government and its partners plan to take to respond to the impacts of climate change between 2024 and 2029.
A supporting monitoring and evaluation framework has also been published.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS (DAERA)
Environmental Improvement Plan for Northern Ireland
This Environmental Improvement Plan was prepared to discharge DAERA’s duty to prepare a plan under the Environment Act 2021. The following strategic objectives are set out:
Company and director found guilty of illegally trading catalytic converters
Platinum Group Metals Recycling Ltd and its director have been found guilty of illegally trading in catalytic convertors.
Between December 2019 and September 2021, the man acted as a director of Platinum Group Metals Recycling Ltd. It was through this company that he traded catalytic converters on a large scale.
Catalytic converters are components in car exhausts. They contain small amounts of precious metals contained within a metal case making them valuable. However, catalytic converters also contain carcinogenic fibres which, if ingested, can cause serious and irreversible lung disease. The dangerous fibres can attach to shoes and clothing and be transported from one place to another. It is therefore extremely important that catalytic converters are handled only under the strict conditions of an environmental permit.
The jury heard that neither the director nor his company had obtained an environmental permit before buying and selling thousands of catalytic converters. The director stored the containers at his home address and at containers at premises in Long Sutton. The devices were stored in an irresponsible manner, giving rise to an unacceptable risk to human health.
An Environment Agency investigation found that at least 71 tonnes of catalytic converters had been sold for recycling. Further investigations revealed that the business had turned over millions of pounds. A warrant was executed at the two premises, where Environment Agency officers, working with Lincolnshire Police, found a large number of catalytic converters. Many of these devices were damaged, exposing their dangerous innards.
The director failed to attend a trial at Lincoln Crown Court on his own behalf or that of his company.
Breaches
Platinum Group Metals Recycling Ltd was charged with the following offences:
The director was also charged with the above offences, by virtue of Regulation 41(1) and Regulation 41(3) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 and Section 157(1) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Penalty
The case has now been adjourned for consideration of the confiscation of the proceeds of crime and the recovery of the Environment Agency’s costs.
The director and Platinum Group Metals Recycling Ltd will be sentenced at a later date. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of the director.
Man fined for obstructing Environment Agency officers
The Environment Agency has successfully prosecuted a man for obstructing officers at a site near Alfreton in Derbyshire.
In August 2023, Environment Agency officers received information that waste was being tipped on land at Golden Valley Equestrian Centre, in Golden Valley near Alfreton. On 11 August 2023, an unmarked 8-wheel tipper lorry that had deposited waste on the site failed to stop when instructed by an Environment Agency officer. The man had told the driver not to stop and to drive past the officer.
During the same visit, the man also refused to permit excavators which were present at Golden Valley Equestrian Centre to scrape back top layers of soil to examine what had been deposited beneath. The man also refused to provide waste transfer notes for waste which had been brought onto site when requested.
On 16 August 2023, the Environment Agency officers returned to Golden Valley Equestrian Centre, at the man’s invitation, to conduct a follow up inspection. During this visit, officers considered they needed to visit a neighbouring site also owned by the man. After some resistance to this by the man, the officers visited that site. At the neighbouring site, the man again obstructed officers. He refused to provide waste transfer notes or delivery tickets relating to piles of sand containing shredded tyre rubber which were present.
During both visits the man was extremely abusive and hostile towards the officers. On the second visit his behaviour was captured on body worn video, which was played in court. In mitigation, the man said that he recognised that his behaviour on the two dates was unacceptable.
The man received two charges relating to Section 110(1) and Section 110(4)(b) of the Environment Act 1995:
The case against the driver of a lorry which had failed to stop for officers was withdrawn.
Penalties
The man was fined a total of £1,866 for the two obstruction offences, plus a victim surcharge of £373 and Environment Agency costs of £11,272.
Company and its director sentenced for illegal waste disposal and illegal asbestos site operations
PDM Industries Ltd and its director have been sentenced for illegal waste offences
An Environment Agency investigation concerned operations at two sites in the Northwest of Preston: Stanley Lodge Farm and a yard adjacent to Wards House Farm. PDM Industries Ltd disposed of controlled waste, specifically tyres, at Stanley Lodge Farm without obtaining the required environmental permits.
Although the Environment Agency instructed PDM Industries Ltd to transfer the waste to a legally permitted facility, the director opted to illegally bury the waste tyres.
Between 31 December 2016 and 15 February 2023, PDM Industries Ltd also operated a facility handling asbestos without authorisation by an environmental permit at the yard next to Wards House Farm. Expert testimony provided during the court case highlighted the controls that should have been in place at the site dealing with asbestos. The inadequate storage conditions posed significant risks to the environment due to the improper containment of harmful asbestos fibres.
The director and PDM Industries Ltd acknowledged the offences and cooperated with the Environment Agency investigation. The tyres were later removed from Stanley Lodge Farm, along with the asbestos waste from the yard next to Wards House Farm.
PDM Industries received fines and costs totalling £60,046.
The director received a 42-week prison sentence (suspended for 18 months) and 200 hours of unpaid community work for his involvement in the offences.
