The Department is required to have in place a charging scheme to ensure that, so far as practicable, fees and charges payable for waste management licences under the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 (the “1997 Order”) are sufficient to recover the costs for the Department in exercising its functions under the 1997 Order. However, fees for considering applications to register an undertaking carrying on an exempt activity and charges for considering applications for registration as carriers of, brokers of, or dealers in controlled waste are set out in legislation, as opposed to the charging scheme. The purpose of these regulations is to increase those legislative fees and charges.

These regulations amend regulation 4 of the Controlled Waste (Registration of Carriers and Seizure of Vehicles) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999 which sets out the charges for registration as a carrier of controlled waste.

Also amended is regulation 18 of the Waste Management Licensing Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003, which sets out fees in relation to registration of an undertaking or establishment carrying out activities exempted from the requirement to obtain a full waste management licence; and paragraph 3(10) of Schedule 4 to the Waste Management Licensing Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003, which sets out fees in relation to the registration of brokers and dealers of controlled waste.