R. (oao European Metal Recycling Ltd) v. Environment Agency

Regulation 37 of the Environmental Permitting Regulations included a mandatory requirement for the regulator to specify what steps had to be taken in order to remove the risk that triggered the service of an enforcement notice (a suspension notice). That requirement could have been satisfied by specifying an outcome or outcomes rather than by reference to steps in the sense of specifying works to be undertaken at the yard, if that was considered to be a more appropriate way in which to proceed. The Environment Agency was not entitled to require the elimination of a risk of serious pollution without identifying the steps by which that was to be achieved.