UK Offence Report

Publicity where an environmental statement is submitted after the planning application

regulation 17(8) of The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2016 (revoked)

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

8 If any person— a issues a certificate which purports to comply with the requirements of paragraph (6)(b), or b recklessly issues a certificate which purports to comply with those requirements and which contains a statement which that person knows to be false or misleading in a material particular, that person is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
making a false or misleading statement
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (recklessly).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: recklessly.

What would breach regulation 17(8)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2016.
  2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
  3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£1,000
Standard scale
Level 3
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
27 January 2016
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations consolidate with amendments the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (England and Wales) Regulations 1999 (“the 1999 Regulations”) and subsequent amending instruments. The 1999 Regulations consolidated and updated earlier instruments which implemented the 1985 Council Directive on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. That 1985 Directive has been replaced by Directive 2011/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Directive 2011/92/EU has been amended by EU Directive 2014/52/EU. The main changes to the 1999 Regulations are: Regulation 4(5) and (7) introduce a requirement for the reasons for negative screening decisions to be provided and placed on Part 1 of the register, to be available for public inspection. Regulation 4(8) clarifies that any person may ask the Welsh Ministers to exercise the power of direction. Regulation 8 limits the requirement for subsequent applications to be subject to the screening process to those cases where the development in question is likely to have significant effects on the environment which were not identified at the time that the initial planning permission was granted. Regulations 27 to 36(2) are provisions relating to applications for planning permission made directly to the Welsh Ministers. Regulation 38 requires a local planning authority who propose to make a local development order to decide whether development is EIA development; and if it is, to take certain steps to enable them to take the environmental information into consideration before making the order. Regulation 39 applies when a local planning authority or the Welsh Ministers propose to make either a section 97 order under section 97 or 100 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, or an order under section 102 or 104 of that Act. Paragraph 21 of Schedule 1 includes sites for the geological storage of carbon dioxide. Installations for the capture of carbon dioxide streams for the purposes of geological storage are included in order to implement requirements in the Directive on the Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Directive 2009/31/EC). These Regulations raise and amend the thresholds in Schedule 2 at which certain types of development project will need to be screened in order to determine whether an environmental impact assessment is required under the Directive. These changes are made having taken into account the selection criteria in Annex III to Directive 2011/92/EU, as adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on 13 December 2011. The threshold for industrial estate development projects is raised from areas exceeding 0.5 hectares to areas exceeding 5 hectares (in paragraph 10(a) of the table in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2). In the case of urban development projects, the existing threshold of 0.5 hectares is raised and amended such that a project needs to be screened if— the development includes more than 1 hectare of development which is not dwellinghouse development; or the development includes more than 150 dwellinghouses; or the area of the development exceeds 5 hectares (see paragraph 10(b) of the table in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2). A definition of “dwellinghouse” is inserted in regulation 2(1) for clarification in this context. Paragraph 13 of the table in paragraph 2 of Schedule 2 contains an amendment to the provisions relating to changes or extensions to existing development, so that the effects of the development as a whole once modified are considered. A regulatory impact assessment has been prepared in relation to these Regulations. Copies may be obtained from Planning Division, The Welsh Government, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NQ and on the website at https://www.wales.gov.uk.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source