Contaminated Land
A great deal of polluted land has been inherited from past generations when little or no consideration was given to the impact of industrial activities on the environment. The contaminated land regime demonstrates the Executive's commitment to assist local authorities to tackle this legacy of land contamination and associated dereliction.
A new statutory regime for cleaning up contaminated land came into force in Scotland on July 14 2000. The main responsibility for enforcing the new regime lies with local authorities, but there is also a major role for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency ( SEPA) in dealing with "special sites" and pollution of controlled waters. Legislative provision for the new regime was made in the Environment Act 1995 through a new Part IIA to the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The statutory regime requires sites to be prioritised to ensure those posing unacceptable risks are tackled first. It therefore provides the best solution to bringing polluted land back into productive use, especially in areas where commercial redevelopment is not likely to bring this about. The amount of contaminated and polluted land has been steadily decreasing as many high value sites have been cleaned up as part of re-development projects. Pollution from existing industrial sites is strictly controlled. The new regime intends to build on this progress by providing a route for remediation of sites of low development value or where there are other barriers to redevelopment.
£18.2 million is being made available to Local Authorities in 2007-08 for Contaminated Land work. This includes £13.2 Million announced in December for specific remediation projects. The remaining funds will help Local Authorities to investigate sites, take forward enforcement action and, if they are unable to identify those responsible for the contamination, to make a start on remediation. In addition, some £44 million was distributed for this work over the years 2000-2001 to 2006-2007, including two tranches of End Year Flexibility funding of £3.9 million and £10.7 million in December 2002 and December 2004 respectively for dealing with contamination at specific sites causing public health risks or blighting communities.
The new regime follows the polluter-pays principle. Those responsible for the land or the polluting activity will be expected to pay for remediation wherever practical. Funding from the Executive is only to be used where owners cannot be traced or where the Council owns the land, or where owners cannot pay for remediation for reasons of hardship.
The contaminated land regime should help to protect human health and the environment, facilitate the re-use of brownfield sites and promote the regeneration of urban areas.