Land pollution

Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 gives Local Authorities the role of identifying and cleaning up any areas of land within its area that is likely to be affecting human health or the environment.

The legislation is based on the polluter pays principle and as such, the Local Authority has to identify those who caused or permitted the pollution and where possible require them to undertake clean up of the land.

The objectives of the regime (Part IIA) are:

• Identify and deal with unacceptable risks associated with contaminated land
• Keep cost burdens proportionate, manageable and economically sustainable
• Ensure land is suitable for its current use and circumstances
• Integrate human health and groundwater controls and thus streamline regulation
• Emphasis is on stimulating voluntary action, which the Council supports. Intervention will only occur when necessary and when informal approaches have been exhausted.

Our role

The City Council is lead regulator for contaminated land within the city.

Under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (Part IIA) local authorities such as Coventry City Council must adopt and publish a strategy for the inspection of contaminated land, having regard to statutory guidance.

The council's role is to identify those areas of land, which may be contaminated.  A significant number of sources of information have been consulted in order to build a picture of the potential for contaminated land across the city.  These include:-

• Historical Maps
• Geology Maps
• City Archives
• Information provided by the Environment Agency, English Nature and British Geological Survey
• Anecdotal Evidence

The Council's main priorities in dealing with contaminated land are:

1. To protect human health
2. To protect controlled waters
3. To protect designated ecosystems
4. To prevent damage to property

City Council land

The contaminated land strategy outlines how we will address our obligations under Part IIA by virtue of our current or previous ownership or occupation of land that may be contaminated. The strategy explains how we will take a rational, ordered and efficient approach to inspection; having regard to information and comments from statutory consultees and others.

As a local authority, the City Council owns a lot of land - parks, cemeteries, old industrial sites and green spaces etc.  The City Council has committed to investigating its own sites alongside those owned privately. If and when a potentially contaminated site is identified, the City Council will work closely with the landowner to ensure the contamination is cleaned up and liaise with the local community so they are fully informed and understand what's happening every step of the way.