Contaminated land

The Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a duty on local authorities to periodically inspect the land within their administrative area for evidence of ground contamination that is causing, or has the potential to cause, significant harm to environmental receptors.

The role of the local authorities under the new legislation are:

to cause their administrative areas to be inspected to identify contaminated land
to determine whether any particular site is contaminated land
to act as the enforcing authority for any site that is not designated as a Special Site (for which the Environment Agency is the enforcing authority)
to establish who should bear responsibility for the remediation of the land
to decide what remediation is required and to ensure that the remediation takes place
to determine who should bear the costs of remediation work
to record certain prescribed information about their regulatory actions on a Public Contaminated Land Register

The new regulations require local authorities to prepare, adopt and publish, by July 2001, a formal written strategy for the inspection of its area setting out a rational, ordered and efficient approach to the identification of land which merits detailed individual inspection.

North Wiltshire's inspection strategy is prioritised to initially identify the most serious ground contamination problems which may pose an actual or potential risk to human health and the drinking water.

A Wiltshire Local Authority Contaminated Land Working Group exists and this strategy reflects a consistent approach agreed at this group.

Last updated: 8 March 2010