EA should make sure rules are practical

Published: Friday, 30 December 2016

If the Environment Agency (EA) is to make rules they should ensure they are intra vires (they have the authority to do so), reasonable and practical, writes Bill Ridgeway.

The 'intra vires' issue has already been discussed. Now for reasonableness and practicality. First there needs to be a definition of night. Looking at the Internet there are several accepted definitions of dawn and dusk and, therefore, of the period in between being referred to as 'night'.

Assumption

On the issue of practicality there is an assumption that everyone has a mobile phone. I bet EA has not tested for a signal for all mobile phone systems at all its sites. That would be unreasonable so it is equally unreasonable for EA to assume that this condition may be complied with.