HL Deb 21 January 1992 vol 534 cc19-20WA
The Earl of Shrewsbury

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What is their policy towards the reclamation of contaminated areas of industrial land in the United Kingdom;

Whether a register of contaminated sites in the United Kingdom has been compiled, as recommended in Contaminated Land (Cm 1161—July 1990); and

Whether they can estimate the potential cost per acre of the reclamation of contaminated land, prior to development, and if so, what is the figure, and what is the latest available estimate of the amount of land affected?

Baroness Blatch

The Government's overall policy on contaminated, derelict and vacant land is stated inThis Common Inheritance (Cm 1200) as follows: Government policies are directed at making the best use of our finite supply of land. An important part of this is to bring previously-developed land back into constructive use.

Within this context, the Government have identified three key areas for action on contaminated land in its response to the report in another place of the Select Committee on the Environment Contaminated Land (Cm 1161). These are: compilation by local authorities of better public information on where land may be contaminated; development of a range of quality assessment criteria to which clean-up efforts would be directed; and review of levels of central Government grant support to assist demonstration and clean-up programmes. Work is in progress on all of these areas.

The registration of land which may be contaminated is intended to meet the first of these objectives, that of providing better information. Local authorities are to be required by Section 143 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to set up registers of land which has been subject to contaminative use. Regulations on these registers are currently in preparation, together with guidance on technical issues.

It is not possible to make a realistic estimate of average cost per acre of reclamation of contaminated land. Any assessment of the need for decontamination, the methods to be used, and their cost, would have to be carried out individually for each site as the need arises. The most recent estimate of the total area of land which might be considered to be contaminated is 50,000 hectares, though only a small proportion of the sites concerned are likely to pose an immediate threat to public health or the environment. However, it must be emphasised that comprehensive information is not yet available. Only when Section 143 registers are established will we know how much land may be contaminated.