CROWES Bulletin March 2008.qxp
11/2/08
11:51
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The APEA celebrates 50 YEARS of Petroleum Administration By Jamie Thompson 50 years ago in April 1958 a group of local authority officers in the West Midlands formed the West Midlands Petroleum Acts Administration group. At that time there were sixty-six local authorities in that area responsible for administering the Petroleum Acts, and some 1500 nationally. The need for this organisation grew up following the publication of the Home Office Model Code in 1957 and the necessity to both understand and apply this code uniformly across the region. Many of those early participants came from a variety of local authority disciplines, building inspectors, weights and measures, engineers and surveyors, public health inspectors with some fire officers and even petroleum officers. Officers from Solihull, Walsall, Worcester, Kidderminster, Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Shrewsbury formed that first council. They quickly recognised that they may well need the input from industry and introduced a membership group called Associates, which meant that industry members could contribute to the Association - but in those days could not vote. The first Bulletin was produced in 1962 four years after the Association was formed and has continued to be the main voice of the Association and its members and continues to inform, and keep us up to date with technical articles. After a few years other authorities outside the West Midlands saw the value of this organisation and in 1965 the group went national and became the Association for Petroleum Acts Administration (APAA) and at the AGM in 1965 branches were formed in the West Midlands, East Midlands, Oxfordshire and Surrey, Yorkshire, and Tees Side. The value of training in those early days was soon recognised and a midweek residential school was set up at Attingham Park in Shrewsbury to discuss the codes and important safety aspect of petrol station construction,
Secretary at the time he worked hard and this soon became almost a must for and the membership gradually grew any budding petroleum officer and ran from a few hundred, as individual for several years. These were always members joined instead of the local oversubscribed and in 1965 there were authorities. It was also decided at an 140 applications for just 60 places! AGM in St Albans to try and increase I certainly enjoyed attending this membership and widen our base so we school as a young inspector in 1966 chose to rename the Association the and met many like-minded students to Association for Petroleum & Explosives learn about petroleum in the wonderful Administration (APEA) as it was thought surroundings of the National Trust many of those involved in explosive and property Attingham Park, which was fireworks licence would help swell organised by Bob Holdaway. membership. An important decision was So we began to see the formation of also made to allow the former associate the Association more on the lines as members to become full members and you see it today, an organisation therefore have the voting rights we all supplying an information need, and a enjoy today. platform to discuss common interests, also supplying training and now with Early Bulletin Photographs branches not only in the UK but in Europe also. The first Association trips to E u r o p e began in the 1960’s with visits to a refinery in France and m o r e famously a visit to Hamburg to see the first Here a discussion on the merits of the first self service site in Colchester self-service The first Bulletins were typed and sites in Germany and the various produced on Gestetner duplicating stories I heard led me to believe that the machines and eventually by the Local early membership had a great time. Authority printing press to a very high The Association membership grew to standard. Many of the early editions around 1500 and it was mostly local were available in bound copies but after petroleum licensing authorities (PLA’s) the 1974 reorganisation money was in that joined with only a few individuals. short supply and as Editor in 1979 I was Many forecast the demise of the limited to around £200 for one edition Association due to the 1974 local and we had to cut corners by typing government reorganisation when the each page (no computers in those numbers of Petroleum Licensing days) and getting it photographed onto Authorities were reduced drastically a plate for printing. After 23 years as from 1500 to 69. Editor perhaps the best investment we Although the changes became more made during that time was to employ effective for petroleum enforcement, it Jane who now manages everything on proved to be a very difficult time for the her computer enabling the Editor much Association over the next few years. more time to seek articles and edit. John Frid was a very able Hon
APEA tel/fax 0845 603 5507
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