Aim to Sustain responds to lead ammunition announcement.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has today published its dossier on the use of lead in ammunition. It has also opened a six-month public consultation on proposed restrictions.
Aim to Sustain will subject the dossier to a high level of scrutiny before making further significant comment. Using the combined expertise of our partner organisations, we will provide a substantive response to the consultation.
However, when our partner organisations signed up to a five-year voluntary transition away from the use of lead ammunition for live quarry shooting two years ago, we did so in the knowledge that such change needs time. We remain fully committed to that transition.
Aim to Sustain is committed to ensuring that HSE proposals around the use of lead ammunition for live quarry shooting are robustly scrutinised, evidence-led and, most importantly, proportionate to any identified risk with appropriate transition periods to allow manufacturers the time to scale up production of viable alternatives to lead.
The priority is to ensure sufficient supplies of non-lead ammunition and to ensure that risks to land, food and fauna are adequately controlled. The HSE says it will continue to engage with UK REACH during the next stage of the process. Aim to Sustain is calling for the HSE and UK REACH to work with manufacturers and assemblers to plan a routemap for adequate supplies of sustainable ammunition.
