Defra ponders aircon/refrigeration register

by Ben Hall23 Oct 2008

A mandatory personal registration scheme for those working in air conditioning and refrigeration is in the balance as officials at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) weigh up the level of support.

Industry representatives were told at a stakeholder meeting last Friday that Defra officials were still analysing the 90 responses from the recently-completed consultation on F-gas regulations.

Feedback from that consultation will be used to decide on the scope of a new company registration scheme; whether another consultation should be launched; or whether an individual registration scheme should be introduced.

Mike Nankivell, chairman of the F-gas implementation group at the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Industry Board, (Acrib) said: “An individual registration scheme is not a requirement under the European F-gas regulations.

"Defra is not yet convinced that an individual register is necessary, but they have accepted it could be useful for enforcing compliance.

"It has agreed that, if the consultation process indicates a sufficient amount of demand for an individual registration scheme, they will undertake a new consultation.”

Scott Gleed, contract manager at Ceilite, said: “Surely a central system already operated by Acrib would seem the sensible way forward.

“If people aren’t on a register, the system is open to fraud. It needs to be third-party accredited, without this, clients and the Government have no assurance that the industry is adhering to the law.”

He said effective measures were needed to ensure the EU did not introduce “more stringent legislation” or threaten the use of HFCs.

He said: “Without an appropriate steer from industry, I believe we will find ourselves subject to a series of bureaucratic, ineffective and impractical solutions.”