Contaminated land

Industrial change and the growth of towns and cities in the 20th Century has led to industrial activities that were once on the outside of main residential areas or towns closing down or being relocated.

Many of these former industrial sites have been left abandoned and are known collectively as "Brownfield Sites".

With continued pressure for residential development some of these sites have either been developed or remain as gaps in our urban landscape, some of which have been ear-marked to help meet our continued needs for additional housing.

A new contaminated land regime with statutory duties for local authorities was introduced by the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2000 under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The purpose of the regime is to investigate the potential risk from former industrial sites and where necessary, to get them cleaned up, this process is known as remediation.

Under this regime the Council are required to:

• publish a contaminated land inspection strategy
• inspect its area
• identify and determine contaminated land
• determine liability for the contamination
• encourage voluntary remediation
• enforce remediation
• undertake remediation where those responsible cannot be found or will not undertake the remediation themselves and
• recover costs.

Further information on land quality is also available from the Environment Agency, who have enforcement responsibilities for certain 'special sites' under the contaminated land regime, or NSCA.