The Landfill Tax (Site Restoration and Quarries) Order 1999

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order, which comes into force on 1st October 1999, amends the Finance Act 1996 (“the Act”) to provide two additional exemptions from landfill tax. The first exemption is for “qualifying material” (material listed in the Landfill Tax (Qualifying Material) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/1528)) which is used for the purposes of restoring a landfill site. The second exemption is for “qualifying material” which is used for the purposes of filling existing or former quarries.

Article 2 provides for insertion in the Act of new sections 43C and 44A.

Section 43C provides an exemption from landfill tax for the disposal of “qualifying material” which is used to restore to use a landfill site, or a part of a landfill site, provided that the site operator has given prior written notification to the Commissioners of Customs and Excise that he intends to commence restoration of the site or the part of the site on which the material is deposited and has provided them with any other information which the Commissioners may require. Subsections (2) and (3) define restoration as work that is required by a planning consent, waste management licence or a resolution authorising disposal of waste on or in the land, to be carried out after the completion of waste disposal operations. Work to cap the landfill site is specifically excluded from qualifying as restoration for these purposes.

Section 44A provides an exemption from landfill tax for the disposal of “qualifying material” which is used to fill existing or former quarries. Certain conditions must be fulfilled. There must be a planning consent which requires the quarry or former quarry to be refilled. Where quarrying operations ceased before 1st October 1999, subsection (3) requires the planning consent imposing that requirement to have been in existence before that date. In addition, the waste management licence authorising disposal of waste in the quarry or former quarry must authorise only the disposal of “qualifying material”. By virtue of subsections (4) and (5) a waste management licence which does not meet this requirement will be deemed to do so for the period between the making of an application for the amendment of the licence to authorise the disposal only of “qualifying material” and the final resolution of that application, but this period cannot exceed two years.