Find out about the penalties for failing to comply with the regulations.
How do we enforce the regulations?
We are responsible for enforcing these regulations. Failure to comply is a criminal offence. You could be fined up to £5,000.
If you are concerned that your oil storage facilities are inadequate, we will provide advice and guidance to help you comply voluntarily.
We can serve a notice under section 161A Water Resources Act 1991 (works notice) to make you improve your oil storage standards. Failure to comply with a notice is a criminal offence and may result in prosecution. From April 2010 we received the power to apply civil sanctions to certain regulations we enforce under the Environmental Civil Sanctions (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2010. This includes the OSR England.
We are able to use the following civil sanctions for a breach of regulation 9(4) of the OSR England:
- fixed monetary penalty;
- variable monetary penalty;
- restoration notice;
- stop notice;
- enforcement undertaking.
More information is available at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website:
Guidance on how we will use these civil sanctions will be available on our website soon. We expect use of the civil sanctions to start at the end of 2010.
Control of Pollution (Oil Storage) (England) Regulations 2001 extract.
Regulation 9. A person who has custody or control of any oil in circumstances in which there is a contravention of any provision of regulations 3 to 5 or the requirements of a notice under regulation 7 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable:
a) on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum; or
b) on conviction on indictment to a fine.
Are distributors committing an offence by delivering to a non-compliant tank?
Defra has said this would not be an offence as it is the non-compliance of the tank that constitutes the offence.
However, if a pollution incident happens during, or following, a delivery, we'll look closely at the circumstances to see if the distributor used appropriate judgement to decide if the tank was fit to receive the delivery.
Do we expect oil delivery company drivers to have sufficient knowledge of the regulations to identify a non-compliant tank?
We expect drivers to have adequate training to cover this requirement. The training should include appropriate industry guidance. Drivers use common sense when handling a product that has a big environmental impact.
Who is responsible for a tank loaned to a customer?
This would depend on what is meant by loaning and what agreements and conditions are attached to the loan.
A company who supplied an unbunded tank to a customer would not be in breach of the regulations, the supplier should state that the tank is non-compliant without secondary containment. Responsibility rests with the site operator (who has custody or control of the oil). A supplier can provide a tank without secondary containment for a user to install in a bund.
We urge customers to only accept bunded tanks to comply with the regulations.
What are the legal requirements to maintain tanks?
There are no legal requirements for the maintenance of tanks. For guidance, please read Above Ground Storage - Pollution Prevention Guidance (PPG) note 2:
Qualified technicians should do an annual check on tank installations when they routinely inspect a boiler and they also produce a tank checklist.
We expect visual checks to be done at least weekly and would encourage tank checks to become part of the routine maintenance schedule. For more information, please read the guidance below:
