ABSTRACT
The work of environmental health and housing practitioners, including advisers often means that they are facing problems and issues that potentially have several routes by which a remedy can be found. It is a general claim that environmental health officers (EHOs) or environmental health practitioners (EHPs) are public health “problem solvers”. Practitioners working for and on behalf of local authorities need to have a legal basis for any actions to resolve these problems; at the same time, there are overlaps and contradictions between different pieces of legislation. This can lead to dilemmas as to what is the most appropriate course of action. It can also lead to confusion and indeed errors when aspects of the different legal provisions become combined or confused and the correct procedure not followed. In many, if not most, cases, it is not possible for a practitioner to “read across” from one legal provision to another. This means that the practitioner and environmental health manager needs a clear understanding of the relevant legal provisions both to ensure that the appropriate basis for action is chosen but also to ensure that there is no mixing of different legal procedures (although, as will be shown later, there is nothing to prevent the different provisions being used for different problems in the same premises, where appropriate).
