Major Hazards

The control of Major Accident Hazard regulations 1999 (COMAH) came into force in 1999 (and amended in 2005). These regulations implemented the Seveso II directive which was devised following the Seveso disatster.
The regulations apply to any establishment storing/handling large quantities of hazardous substances.

The aim of the regulation is to reduce the risk of potential major accidents such as the Flixborough disaster, or more recently Buncefield.
The regulations operate on two levels depending on the establishment’s status; ‘lower tier’ and ‘upper tier’, which is determined by inventory of dangerous substances.

Operators of COMAH Top Tier Sites are required to produce a COMAH Safety Case and a Major Accident Prevention Policy (MAPP). Operators of COMAH Lower Tier Site’s are required to produce a Major Accident Prevention Policy (MAPP).

RAS can assist with all stages of the preparation of a COMAH Safety Report including:

• Gap analysis against COMAH requirements.
• Review of Management Systems.
• Safety Case preparation.
• Major Hazard identification.
• Consequence, frequency and risk analysis.
• Human factors assessments.
• Assistance in producing a major accident prevention policy (MAPP).
• Environmental risk analysis.
• On and Off-site emergency plans.
• Domino Information Exchange.