Contaminated Land Strategy
for the London borough of Ealing
Revised June 2006
Contaminated Land Strategy
The Council’s Contaminated Land Strategy has been drawn up in accordance with many specific requirements made by the Government.
Across the Borough, contaminated land will be identified and cleaned up. Much is already known about many sites across the Borough. But local knowledge can add to this and consequently, information from residents, or people who work in the area, could be very valuable.
Any comments or criticisms relating to the Strategy itself are also welcomed.
This consultation is very important, if you consider that any particular site may be
contaminated, please contact the Environmental Health Department:
Andrew Lyon
Senior Environmental Health Officer
London Borough of Ealing
Perceval House
14-16 Uxbridge Road
Ealing W5 2HL
Direct Line: 0208 8825 7308
Fax: 0208 8825 7855
Email:
Executive Summary
Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act, 1990, provides a regulatory regime for the identification and remediation of contaminated land. It requires every local authority to inspect land in its area for contamination which may be causing an unacceptable risk to human health or the wider environment, due to the current use and circumstances of the land. The strategy details how the authority will take a rational, ordered and efficient approach to this inspection.
The Council’s priorities in dealing with contaminated land will be to:
· protect human health
· protect controlled waters
· protect designated ecosystems
· prevent damage to property
· prevent any further contamination of land
· encourage voluntary remediation
· encourage re-use of brownfield land
Since 2001, an ongoing investigation of the borough has been undertaken to determine past industrial land use and to assess the likelihood that such land use may impact on current sensitive receptors. Priority is being given to inspecting land classed as residential with gardens, land used as schools or allotments and that land owned (now or previously) by the Council. Controlled waters and protected areas of the environment will also be examined. Problem sites will be prioritised to determine the order in which they are cleaned up.
Some sites may be identified, outside this general approach to inspection, which will require urgent attention. These sites will be dealt with as they arise. The Council will support parties wishing to undertake voluntary remediation and will encourage re-use of brownfield land for development.
The Council is the lead regulator on contaminated land but, wherever necessary, the Council will work in partnership with other organisations particularly the Environment Agency. Consultation has been undertaken, and will continue, with stakeholders, local groups and all statutory consultees.
The regulations set clear criteria that must be met before land can be formally designated as contaminated land. The Council must also maintain a public register that must contain only certain specified information.
London Borough of Ealing
Contaminated Land Strategy
Contents
Section Page
i Executive Summary 3
ii Contents 4
iii List of Tables 7
iv List of Maps 7
v Definitions 8
1. Introduction 10
1.1 Background to the Legislation 10
1.2 Regulatory Context 12
1.3 Development of the strategy 24
2. Characteristics of the London Borough of Ealing 25
2.1 Geographical location 25
2.2 Geology and hydrology 26
2.3 Historical background 27
2.4 Borough characteristics 29
3. The Council strategy: Overall aims 33
3.1 Aims of the strategy 33
3.2 Objectives 33
4. Council’s priority actions and timescales 35
4.1 Priorities 35
4.2 Timescales 37
5. Procedures 39
5.1 Internal management arrangements for inspection and identification 39
5.2 Local Authority interests in land 39
5.3 Information collection 40
5.4 Information and Complaints 43
5.5 Information evaluation 45
5.6 Obtaining desktop Information 47
5.7 Inspection of Land 47
5.8 Powers of Entry 47
5.9 Determining if land is contaminated 48
5.10 The written record of determination and formal notification 48
6. General liaison and communication strategies 51
6.1 Statutory consultees 51
6.2 Non-statutory consultees 51
6.3 Communicating with owners, occupiers and other interested parties 51
6.4 Serving a remediation notice 52
6.5 Powers of entry 52
6.6 Enforcement action 53
6.7 Risk communication 53
6.8 The public register 54
6.9 Provision of information to the Environment Agency 54
6.10 Liaison with other statutory bodies 55
6.11 Liaison with land owners, occupiers & relevant interested parties 55
7. Review mechanisms 56
7.1 Quality control, performance indicators and arrangements for review 56
7.2 Complaints and information from members of the public 58
7.3 Triggers for undertaking inspection 58
7.4 Triggers for reviewing inspection decisions 58
7.5 Reviewing the strategy 59
8. Information management 60
8.1 General principles 60
8.2 The Environmental Information Regulations, 1992. 60
8.3 The Freedom of Information Act 2000 61
8.4 The Data Protection Act, 1998. 61
8.5 Contents of formal contaminated land registers 62
Further relevant documents
Appendices
1 Special sites 66
2 List of consultees and contact points 67
3 Pollution of controlled waters 72
4 List of potentially contaminative land uses 74
5 Powers of entry and the appointment of “suitable persons” 76
6 Checklist of Information Requirements 78
7 Radioactivity and radon 81
8 Potential sources of contamination 82
9 Potential receptors 84
10 Glossary of terms 86
iii List of Tables
Table 1 Timetable for strategy 37
Table 2 Possible information sources 40
iv List of Maps
Map 1 London Borough of Ealing 25
Map 2 Groundwater Vulnerability Map for Ealing 26
Map 3 Location of Conservation Areas, Listed Buildings & SSSI’s 31
Map 4 Location of Key water resources and Allotments 32
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v Definitions:
CONTAMINATED LAND:
Any land, which appears to the local authority in whose area it is situated, to be in such condition, by reason of substances in, on or under the land, that:
a) significant harm is being caused or there is a significant possibility of such harm being caused, or
b) pollution of controlled waters is being, or is likely to be, caused.
A RECEPTOR is either:
(a) a living organism, a group of living organisms, an ecological system, or property
which:
· is in a category listed in Table A of DETR Circular 02/2000 (see below) as a type of receptor, and
· is being, or could be, harmed, by a contaminant; or
(b) controlled waters, which are being, or could be, polluted by a contaminant.
Receptors are defined in Table A of DETR Circular 02/2000 as:
1 Human beings
2 Any ecological system, or living organism forming part of such a system, within a
location which is, amongst others:
· a site of special scientific interest
· a national nature reserve
· a site of special protection for birds
· a special area of conservation and special protection area
· a national park
3. Property in the form of:
· crops, including timber;
· produce grown domestically, or on allotments, for consumption;
§ livestock;
· other owned or domesticated animals; and
· wild animals, which are the subject of shooting, or fishing rights.
4 Property in the form of buildings.
CONTAMINANT:
A substance which is in, on, or under the land and which has the potential to cause harm or to cause pollution of controlled waters.
A PATHWAY is one or more routes or means by or through which a receptor:
· is being exposed to, or affected by, a contaminant, of
· could be so exposed or affected.
CONTROLLED WATERS:
As in Part III, section 104, of Water Resources Act, 1991, this embraces territorial and coastal waters, inland fresh waters, and ground waters. See also Appendix 3.
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1 Introduction.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrial change and demographic shifts resulted in the need for large-scale reorganisation of our towns and cities. Industries moved out, or disappeared altogether, leaving large, ‘brownfield’, gaps in our urban landscape. At the same time, changes in heating methods, and the advent of the consumer society, has had a significant effect on the type and volume of refuse it has been necessary to dump as landfill.
England, in common with all developed countries, has a legacy of land where the soil has been badly affected by previous uses. Severe contamination of land can present risks to human health through direct exposure and ingestion or through consumption of produce grown on the soil. It can also pose a risk to ecosystems, built property and the water environment. In addition to these direct risks, the actual or suspected presence of contamination on potential development sites can prevent their reuse, increasing pressure on greenfield sites.
This strategy details how the Council of the London Borough of Ealing will organise the inspection of the land in its area for contamination.
1.1 Background to the Legislation.
The Government, in its response to the Eleventh Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution in 1985, announced that the Department of the Environment was preparing a circular on the planning aspects of contaminated land. The draft of the circular stated that:
Even before a planning application is made, informal discussions between an applicant and the local planning authority are very helpful. The possibility that the land might be contaminated may thus be brought to the attention of the applicant at this stage, and the implications explained.
This suggests that it would be advantageous for the planning authorities to have available a list of potentially contaminated sites.
In 1988, the Town & Country Planning (General Development) Order required local planning authorities to consult with waste disposal authorities if development was proposed within 250 metres of land which had been used to deposit refuse within the last 30 years.
In January 1990, the House of Commons Environment Committee published its first report on contaminated land. This document, for the first time, expressed concern that the Government’s suitable for use approach, “may be underestimating a genuine environmental problem and misdirecting effort and resources.” The committee produced twenty-nine recommendations, including the proposals that:
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The Department of the Environment concern itself with all land which has been so contaminated as to be a potential hazard to health or the environment regardless of the use to which it is to be put, and;
The Government bring forward legislation to lay on local authorities a duty to seek out and compile registers of contaminated land.
Immediately following the House of Commons report, the Environmental Protection Act, 1990, had, at section 143, a requirement for local authorities to compile, “Public registers of land which may be contaminated.” If enacted this would have required local authorities to maintain registers of land which was, or may have been, contaminated as a result of previous (specified) uses. In March 1992 however, the concern about the blighting effect of such registers resulted in a press release published by the Secretary of State delaying the introduction of section 143 stating:
The Government were concerned about suggestions that land values would be unfairly blighted because of the perception of the registers.
Subsequently, in July 1992, draft regulations were released with significantly reduced categories of contaminative uses, namely, “those where there is a very high probability that all land subject to those uses is contaminated unless it has been appropriately treated.” It was estimated that land covered by the registers would be only 10 to 15% of the area previously envisaged. This, however, still did not satisfy the City, so on the 24th of March 1993 the new Secretary of State (Michael Howard) announced that the proposals for contaminated land registers were to be withdrawn and a belt and braces review of land pollution responsibilities to be undertaken.
This resulted in the Department of the Environment consultation paper, Paying For Our Past (March 1994), which elicited no less than 349 responses. The outcome of this was the policy document, Framework for Contaminated Land, published in November 1994. This review emphasised a number of key points:
· The Government was committed to the “polluter pays” principle, and the “suitable for use” approach.
· Concern related to past pollution only (there were effective regimes in place to control future sources of land pollution).
· Action should only be taken where the contamination posed actual or potential risks to health or the environment and there are affordable ways of doing so.
· The long standing statutory nuisance powers had provided an essentially sound basis for dealing with contaminated land.
It was also made clear that the Government wished to:
· Encourage a market in contaminated land;
· Encourage its development, and
· That multi functionality was neither sensible nor feasible.
The proposed new legislation was first published in June 1995, in the form of section 57 of the Environment Act which amended the Environmental Protection Act, 1990, by introducing a new Part IIA. After lengthy consultation on statutory guidance this came into force on 1st April 2000. In August 2006, the Radioactive Contaminated Land Regulations 2006 extended the regulatory regime to include land that is contaminated land by virtue of radioactivity.
1.2 Regulatory Context
1.2.1 Regulatory role of local authorities under Part IIA
The new contaminated land regime provides an improved system for the identification and remediation of contaminated land. This applies only to land causing unacceptable risks to human health or the wider environment, assessed on the basis of the current use and circumstances of the land.
The primary regulators of these new powers are the local authorities. In the London Borough of Ealing, the strategy will be under the control of the Service Head, Environmental Quality and the Regulatory Committee. It should be noted that this is a complex and demanding enforcement role, which will be carried out in accordance with the Council’s enforcement policy and the Cabinet Office and Local Government Association, Enforcement Concordat of March 1998.
The statutory guidance states that: “The local authority has the sole responsibility for determining whether any land appears to be contaminated land.” This is a significant responsibility which reflects existing local authority duties under the statutory nuisance regime and Town & Country Planning, development control. The new legislation provides a means to require the remediation of land where this is not already taking place voluntarily, and imposes a duty on local authorities to identify contaminated land in their areas. The role in broad terms includes: