Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Environment – Control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances – Directive 96/82 – Land-use planning

(Council Directive 96/82, as amended by Directive 2003/105, Art. 12(1))

2. Environment – Control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances – Directive 96/82 – Land-use planning

(Council Directive 96/82, as amended by Directive 2003/105, Art. 12(1))

Summary

1. Article 12(1) of Directive 96/82 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances, as amended by Directive 2003/105, must be interpreted as meaning that the obligation which it imposes on Member States to ensure that account is taken of the need, in the long term, to maintain appropriate distances between establishments covered by that directive and buildings of public use applies also to a public authority responsible for issuing planning permissions, even when it has no discretion in the exercise of that prerogative.

(see para. 35, operative part 1)

2. The obligation set out in Article 12(1) of Directive 96/82 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances, as amended by Directive 2003/105, to take account of the need, in the long term, to maintain appropriate distances between establishments covered by that directive and buildings of public use does not require the competent national authorities to prohibit the siting of a building of public use when such a building is not separated by an appropriate distance from an existing establishment, when there are already several comparable buildings of public use at a distance from the establishment which is no greater or not significantly greater, when the operator does not – as a result of the new project – have to reckon with additional requirements concerning the limitation of the consequences of an accident, and when the requirements relating to healthy living and working conditions are satisfied. By contrast, that obligation precludes national legislation that provides that it is mandatory to issue an authorisation for the siting of such a building without the hazards connected with the siting of the building within the perimeter of those distances having been duly assessed at the planning stage or at that of the individual decision.

(see para. 53, operative part 2)