10 January 2008

Brussels Votes for Common Sense on Soil

QPA, the principal trade body for the quarry products sector, is celebrating an early success in 2008 with news that the Draft Soils Directive has been rejected by the EU Environment Council of Ministers in a vote in Brussels. The Draft Directive had classified quarrying operations as “potentially soil polluting activities”, which opened the door to the industry facing expensive regulation that effectively duplicated existing UK regimes*.

The Environment Council’s rejection of the Soils Directive followed extensive campaigning by the QPA for common sense on the proposals. With no apparent risk basis for the positioning of quarrying as a “potentially soil polluting activity”, QPA had been arguing that the UK planning, landfill and groundwater regimes and the imminent Mining Waste Directive already provided suitable means for addressing industry operations’ potential impacts on soil. The result of the vote in Brussels therefore is a welcome avoidance of the increasingly familiar burden of double regulation.

QPA’s Director General Simon van der Byl said: “the UK quarrying industry is breathing a collective sigh of relief following the welcome outcome of the vote on the Draft Soils Directive. The Directive posed unreasonable and unnecessary regulatory burden on the industry and it is pleasing that neighboring countries expressed similar alarm in advance of the vote in Brussels.”

ENDS

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