Contaminated Land

Key Legislation:

For more detail on the Legislation relevant to this page, please use the following links:
Supporting Legislation:
Guidance:

DEFRA Circular ‘Contaminated Land’ (PDF document)

Guidance for the implementation of the Contaminated Land Regime in Scotland from the Scottish Government.

Further guidance on the Scottish regime – 2005 update.

The Environment Agency has produced briefing notes to provide guidance on Radioactive Contaminated Land in England and Wales:

The Environment Agency and Defra have provided some management guidance on how to carry out a risk assessment if you’re applying for a bespoke permit that includes the discharging of hazardous pollutants to surface water.
Consent Needed: The identification and remediation of contaminated land is not consent based.
Environmental Liability Directive 2004/35/EC: The Environmental Liability Directive was adopted in 2004 and was required to be implemented by 30 April 2007. The Directive enforces strict liability for prevention and remediation of environmental damage to ‘biodiversity’, water and land from specified activities and remediation of environmental damage for all other activities through fault or negligence. The Environmental Liability Directive is now implemented in England and Wales. In Scotland The Environmental Liability (Scotland) Regulations 2009 came into force on 24 June 2009.
Performance Criteria:

Guidance to performance criteria relates to ‘Health Criteria Values’ and ‘Soil Guideline Values’.

Such standards are defined in the Environmental Agency’s Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) framework. The framework does not consider risks to other receptors such as plants and animals, buildings, and controlled waters.

Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA).
See CLEA under the Performance Standards tab.
What to Report: No formal reporting is required.
Non Compliance: Not applicable.
Permit Duration: Not applicable.
 Snippets: None known at present.