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Are you buying or selling a house you know or suspect may be affected by contamination?

If you are buying or selling a house then your Solicitor should have considered contamination as part of the conveyancing process. This may have resulted in them contacting a commercial organisation or the Council for information. In most cases, contamination will not be an issue but in a minority of situations it may raise itself as a concern. In the case of recent developments on brownfield sites, we will hold reports detailing what was found on site, what clean up was carried out (if one was required at all) and these should resolve any issues.

If you wish to find out more information about a particular site then the Council offers an Environmental Enquiry Service where you can request information about potentially contaminated land and a range of other factors that may effect the site. (LINK)

Do you have information about historical land-use in your area that you think we might be interested in?

If so then please contact us and let us know. The Council has undertaken a vast data gathering exercise to try and identify all the sites in the Council's area, however we recognise that the best sources of information are those people who have lived in the area for a long time and have seen industry come and go. We would be very grateful for as much information as you can provide us. If you run or are a member of a local historical society then please get in touch as your group may hold information that would be very useful to us.

Are you concerned about substances you store at your property might contribute to contaminated land?

If you have heating oil tanks, large stores of chemicals or fuels on your property or have had in the past then there is a small chance these could cause contamination of the ground. Contact us for if you would like any more information. A new piece of legislation called The Control of Pollution (Oil Storage) (England) Regulations 2001 places control on the storage of fuel. The regulations affect you if you store oil in containers greater than 200 litres, above ground at an industrial, commercial or institutional site, or if you store more than 3500 litres of oil at a domestic property.

The Environment Agency is responsible for enforcing these regulations in England. They can give you advice and guidance to help you get your storage facilities up to scratch. However, if you do fall into either of these categories not act, they may take legal action for non-compliance and could serve a notice to make you bring the facilities up to standard. Failure to comply with this notice would be a criminal offence and may result in prosecution.

The regulations cover oil storage at many types of site. If you are responsible for oil storage at a factory, shop, office, hotel, pub, restaurant, school, church, village hall, public sector building, community centre or hospital in England, the regulations are likely to apply.

The regulations do not apply:

• at premises used for refining or distributing oil;
• for oil stored in a building or entirely underground;
• to the agricultural use of oil on farms - the storage of agricultural fuel oil comes under the Control of Pollution (Silage, Slurry and Agricultural Fuel Oil) Regulations, 1991;
• to waste mineral oil;
• at premises used mainly as a single private dwelling where less than 3500 litres of oil is stored. However, Building Regulations do apply for new and replacement domestic tanks.

Last updated: 17 November 2010