We have been given new duties to investigate and clean up potentially contaminated land and further information can be found in our contaminated land strategy.
Throughout England there are thousands of sites that have been contaminated by various substances from past activities or practices and these may present a threat to the environment and pose a risk to human health. The lack of proper controls, particularly in the early part of the 20th Century, meant that these substances were not properly handled or contained and many of them have found their way into the ground at these locations and in the surrounding areas.
Our responsibility is to ensure that land contamination is identified and cleaned up (or remediated) through risk-based inspection or through the planning process which is the responsibility of applicants and developers.