Part 4: Air Quality and Environmental Recall Section 73: Smoke control areas: amendments of the Clean Air Act 1993
This section enacts Schedule 12, which amends the Clean Air Act 1993. The amendments give local authorities the power to impose financial penalties for the emission of smoke in smoke control areas (SCAs) in England. This means that the emission of smoke from a chimney of a building or a chimney (not being a chimney of a building) that serves the furnace of any fixed boiler or industrial plant in an SCA in England has changed from being a criminal offence to instead being subject to a civil penalty notice (a fine). The change removes the current statutory defences that are making enforcement by local authorities very challenging, and reduces the burden and cost associated with enforcing SCAs. Additionally, the amendments remove the exemption in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 so that smoke emitted from a private dwelling in a Smoke Control Area can be enforced by local authorities in England as a statutory nuisance.
	The amendments also remove the limit on the fine for the offence of selling controlled solid fuels for delivery (leaving it to the discretion of the Magistrate’s Court), and create a new duty on retailers to notify customers of the law regarding the acquisition of controlled solid fuels in England. This is intended to help raise consumer awareness and improve compliance.
	They also enable a local authority to extend the scope of an SCA in England to cover moored vessels, subject to local consultation. This means that if a local authority amends its smoke control order to include vessels, smoke emissions from the chimney of such vessels could be liable to a financial penalty.
	Schedule 12 also amends, for Wales, the procedure for declaring a fuel to be authorised or fireplace to be exempt for the purposes of Part 3 of the Clean Air Act 1993, by enabling Welsh Ministers to publish a list of these fuels and fireplaces and to update this list as needed.