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The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 replaces both the 1964 Act and Part 1 of Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 to bring forward a revised regulatory regime for the scrap metal dealing and vehicle dismantling industries.
This Act requires councils to issue licences to scrap metal dealers and maintain a register of persons trading in their area as scrap metal dealers.
Application for Scrap Metal Collectors Licence
Application for Scrap Metal Site Licence
The key features of the Act are:-
- Requiring all individuals and businesses to complete an enhanced application process to obtain a scrap metal dealer licence. Local authorities will have the power to turn down unsuitable applicants.
- Giving local authorities the power to revoke a licence.
- Requiring all sellers of metal to provide personal identification at the point of sale, which is then recorded by the scrap metal dealer.
- Extending the offence of buying metal with cash to itinerant metal collectors.
- New powers for the police and local authorities to enter and inspect sites.
- Creating a central public register, hosted by the Environment Agency in England and Natural Resource Wales in Wales, of all individuals and businesses licenced as scrap metal dealers.
- Widening the definition of a scrap metal dealer to include motor salvage operators.
Scrap metal dealers are also required to have planning permission to operate a site and are required to have permits or exemptions from the Environment Agency/Natural Resource Wales (NRW) to operate a scrap metal site under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Those transporting metal to a scrap metal site for profit are required to be registered as a ‘waste carrier’. Waste carriers must comply with the waste duty of care.
Scrap metal dealers can apply for two types of licence:-
• Site Licences – Allows licensee to store, buy and sell or transport scrap metal to and from sites from any local authority area.
• Collectors Licences – Allows licensee to operate buying scrap metal door to door in the issuing authorities area (Licences will be required for each Council’s area where it is intended to collect).
A person may hold more than one licence issued by different local authorities, but may not hold more than one licence issued by any one authority.
Useful Information
Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013
Prescribed Documents and Information for Verification of Name and Address Regulations 2013
www.environment-agency.gov.uk