Explosives Regulations 2014

Guidance on Regulations – Safety provisions

The Explosives Regulations 2014 came into force on 1 October 2014, and the Approved Code of Practice to the Manufacture and Storage of Explosives Regulations 2005, and the Guide to the Placing on the Market and Supervision of Transfers of Explosives Regulations 1993, have been withdrawn.

This guidance now applies. It is for anyone who has duties under the safety provisions of the Explosives Regulations 2014, particularly employers, private individuals and other people manufacturing explosives, storing larger quantities of explosives or storing explosives that present higher hazards.

It provides overarching guidance on how the safety provisions of the Regulations should be met, and is supported and supplemented by subsector guidance.

This publication should be read alongside L151 The Explosives Regulations 2014 - Security provisions.

What has changed?

The main changes to the regulatory framework include:

• merging registrations into the licensing system
• allowing local authorities to issue licences up to 5 years, aligning them with equivalent HSE/police-issued licences
• extending licensing to address storage of ammonium nitrate blasting intermediate (ANBI)
• exceptions for keeping desensitised explosives without a licence have been updated
• tables of separation distances have been restructured to better allow for sites with more than one store. The tables have also been revised to cover quantities of explosives greater than 2000kg
• a revised list of explosives that can be acquired or acquired and kept without an explosives certificate from the police
• the repeal of the Fireworks Act 1951, as its remaining provisions have been superseded by the Pyrotechnic (Safety) Regulations 2010