This is a plain-English summary prepared for discussion, drawn from Defra, APHA and Environment Agency guidance. It is not legal advice, and the exact conditions that apply to Springfield are those written on your own APHA approval and your Solihull MBC Part B permit. We would want to read both before the build, and design the compliance screens against your actual conditions.
Seven duties, mapped
For each duty: what the law asks, and what the system produces when an inspector asks for it.
Dead pets are Category 1 animal by-products
Fallen pets must be handled, stored and disposed of as Category 1 material. Only an approved incineration plant may cremate them, and the material must be traceable from receipt to ash.
Every case carries an ABP commercial document reference, a named collector, a cold-storage bay and an unbroken timeline. The compliance screen lists any case missing one.
Compliance centreThe plant itself must be approved and its approval conditions met
Approval covers the specific incinerator, its capacity, and the conditions of operation. Records must be available to an inspector on request, and the plant must operate within its approved throughput.
Cremator identity, cycle count and throughput per day are recorded per case, so the daily and weekly load is reportable rather than estimated.
Plant & permitsAn environmental permit from Solihull MBC, with emissions conditions
The permit sets operating conditions including combustion temperature, monitoring and record keeping. Springfield's permit is U1444639. Breaches and abnormal operation must be recorded and, where required, notified.
Permit reference is held on the plant record with its review date. Any cycle that fails temperature is raised as a logged exception with a cause and an action.
Exceptions logThe combustion standard is the core technical duty
Gases from the cremation must reach 850 °C and be held for at least two seconds. Temperature must be monitored, and the monitoring evidenced.
Readings are captured through each cycle with peak and average, and each cycle is marked pass or exception against the 850 °C threshold - per pet, not per day.
Any case, cremation stageRecords must be kept, complete, and retrievable
Commercial documents and operational records must be retained for at least two years and produced on inspection. Incomplete records are themselves the finding.
Nothing is deletable. Every case retains its full timeline, and a date range can be exported as an inspection pack in one action. Six-year retention is recommended and is the system default.
Inspection packOwner records are personal data with a lawful basis and a retention limit
Names, addresses, phone numbers and emails must be held securely, accessible only to those who need them, retained no longer than necessary, and deletable on request. Marketing needs consent.
Owner records sit behind named logins with role-based access, marketing consent is a field with a date, and a retention clock runs from case closure. No copies circulate by email.
Owner recordsThe individual-cremation promise must be substantiated
Claiming individual cremation while unable to demonstrate it is a misleading commercial practice. The claim is only as strong as the evidence behind it.
One case per cycle is enforced, label verification is two-point and named, and the chain of custody is printable as a certificate for the owner.
Chain of custodyWhat an inspection looks like, before and after
The practical difference is not whether Springfield is compliant. It is how long it takes to prove it.
"Show me the records for the last three months."
- · Filter four tabs by date and hope the dates are typed correctly.
- · Cross-reference by hand to show each pet's full journey.
- · Explain the July cold-storage date on an April case.
- · No way to show that a record has not been edited since.
- · Time: hours, plus whatever the inspector's confidence costs.
The same question, one screen
- · Pick the date range; every case in it is listed with its stage.
- · Each case prints as a one-page chain of custody with the cycle curve.
- · Exceptions are already listed, with the cause and action recorded.
- · Impossible dates were refused at entry, so there is nothing to explain.
- · Time: minutes, and the pack can be handed over as a PDF.