Following a public consultation we have published guidance on
dealing with activities that could cause offensive odour. The
guidance is aimed at SEPA officers involved in the regulation of
activities that could give rise to offensive odours, but it can be
referred to by others such as members of the public and industrial
operators.
The guidance brings together guidance and practices used
previously but which were documented in different places. It
explains and considers international guidance on dealing with
offensive odour, and is provided for all legislative areas we
administer, such as the pollution prevention and control and waste
management licensing regimes.
The guidance provides information on 5 main areas:
- what is odour;
- dealing with new or changed facilities;
- regulating operational facilities;
- incident and complaint response;
- working with communities.
The guidance also includes comprehensive appendices on odour
thresholds, odour descriptions, complaint investigation procedures
and technical information on suitable prevention, abatement and
mitigation measures that can be used to avoid offensive odours.
What is odour?
The regulation of odour causing offense is one of the most
difficult areas of our work due to the subjective nature of
offense: what is offensive to one person may not be offensive to
another and some people may be more sensitive to a particular odour
than others. This section of the guidance describes odour from a
scientific perspective and looks at different types of odour as
well as the potential for the impact that offensive odour can
have.
Dealing with new or changed facilities
This section provides guidance on assessing applications for new
or changed facilities including the types of responses that would
be appropriate at the planning consent stage, as well as
determining applications for an environmental licence to operate.
Advice is also given on undertaking assessments and on setting
suitable conditions within environmental licences.
Regulating operational facilities
This section highlights the need for odour to be a regular topic
for routine inspections and points to the technical appendices
regarding appropriate control measures that should be employed by
operators eg management, containment, abatement and discharge into
the environment.
Responding to incidents and complaints
This section, with Appendix 3, uses the concept of Frequency,
Intensity, Duration, Offensiveness and Location (FIDOL) to
structure investigations into odour incidents and complaints. As
mentioned above the assessment of offensive odour can be subjective
so the use of FIDOL provides a helpful framework for officers to
consider the offensiveness of any particular odour against.
This section also builds on our incident classification scheme
to provide more detailed advice on dealing with incidents involving
odour.
Please note that the guidance is designed to complement our
Enforcement Policy by providing specific advice on offensive odour
issues and does not in any way supersede or replace that
policy.
Working with communities
This section highlights the importance of working together with
affected communities to resolve issues. It is important to keep
communities aware of actions taken to resolve issues, how long
these actions may take and what should be achieved. This includes
informal as well as formal action such as enforcement notices.
For many potentially offensive odours there are no simple
measurements that can be applied to determine how much impact they
have. This guidance provides the necessary information to our
officers to undertake suitable and appropriate assessments as well
as tools that can be used in the regulation of activities that
could cause offensive odour.
To that end the guidance is a development to increase our
effectiveness and to ensure our decision making with respect to
odour can be undertaken in an appropriate and structured manner.
The guidance cannot give a simple answer to every odour issue
because each odour event is different and has to be considered in
the circumstances applying at the time. Therefore this guidance
must be read in conjunction with other SEPA guidance: on regulating
emissions to air, such as Pollution
Prevention Control and Waste
regulations; our policies
on enforcement and above all to our vision
for regulation.