Contaminated land can be reclaimed and redeveloped after it's been cleaned up.
Overview
Past industrial activities have contaminated some of the land in England and Wales. This land may be a health risk to people's health and the environment unless it's cleaned up. Contaminated land can be reclaimed and redeveloped after it's been cleaned up.
Contaminated land is land that has been polluted with harmful substances to the point where it now poses a serious risk to human health and the environment. Contamination can be on the surface or below it.
People often confuse it with ‘brownfield land’. Brownfield sites are land or premises that have previously been used or developed. They may also be vacant, or derelict. However, they are not necessarily contaminated. Greenfield land is land that has never been built on.
The Government’s target of 60 per cent of new developments to be built on previously developed land and through conversion of existing buildings, has been met eight years ahead of schedule.
The pressure to build on brownfield sites, due to a greater awareness of environmental issues, means developers need to know whether a site is contaminated.
Contaminated land is regulated in two main ways:
Town and Country Planning Act
Contamination or the potential for contamination should be considered during the planning process. Local authorities can place conditions on planning permissions requiring that developers investigate contamination and, where it's found, cleaned it up to prevent harm.
The Environment Agency supports this process for those sites where there is water pollution or the potential for water to become polluted.
Contaminated land regime
The regime comes into effect if a site is not being redeveloped but is causing or has the potential to cause significant harm.
Once again, local authorities are the lead regulator and we support them by regulating 'special sites' (see what is being done about contaminated land?).
No one knows exactly how much contaminated land there is. We calculate that around 325,000 sites (300,000 ha) have had some form of current or previous use that could have lead to contamination. We do not expect all these to be contaminated to the point where we need to take action.
Until they are investigated and assessed however, we can only estimate the true extent of actual contamination. We have calculated that around 33,500 sites have been identified so far as contaminated to some extent, and that 21,000 sites have been treated, predominantly through the planning regime.
Under the contaminated land regime local authorities have a duty to inspect sites across England and Wales to identify contaminated land causing, or having the potential to cause, significant harm. The majority of contaminated land sites are relatively small.
The most common pollutants at the sites were metals and organic compounds (Figure 1). Thirty eight of these are ‘special sites’ which means they fit a particular description in the regulations, and we are taking action to clean them up.
The responsibility for identifying and treating contaminated land in England and Wales is split between local authorities and ourselves (see what is being done about contaminated land?).
Most contamination problems are due to a lack of care over industrial and waste management. In the UK, large scale man made contamination started during the Industrial Revolution. Bad industrial practices and accidents released potentially harmful substances into the land, aquifers (underground water stores) and rivers. 0il refineries, railways, steel works, illegal landfill sites, petrol stations, gas works and accidental industrial spills may have all been sources of contamination in the past. Contamination can also come from historical activities dating back hundreds of years, such as spoil heaps from some Roman lead mines, and from naturally occurring substances. We can now regulate industry to minimise pollution, but the legacy of historical contamination remains.
The Government introduced the contaminated land regime, set out in Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, in England on 1 April 2000, and on 1 July 2001 in Wales. Part IIA was introduced to identify and clean up contaminated land that poses unacceptable risks to human health or the environment. Statutory guidance advises the regulators on how to interpret the regulations.
Local authorities and the Environment Agency are joint regulators under the regime with local authorities taking the lead role.
Increasingly developers and landowners are playing a vital role in restoring the land, regardless of whether they caused the contamination in the first place.
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