§ Sir Trevor SkeetTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a right of appeal to a landowner or occupier from the decision of a local authority including his land on a register of potentially contaminated sites and for deregistration to be undertaken in the event of appropriate clean-up measures having been taken.
§ Mr. Trippier[holding answer 4 February 1992]: Local authorities compiling registers under section 143 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 will be required to record all land which is, or has been, subject to specific contaminative uses to be listed in regulations. An objection to the registration of a site could thus be based only on a factual question concerning the site's use, and therefore no formal appeal procedure is considered necessary. However, an authority which refused to correct an error would lay itself open to judicial review or civil legal action.
Under section 143 sites cannot be deregistered after treatment, but registers will record details of any investigation or treatment which may have been carried out. Treatment rarely removes all contamination, and purchasers, planners and developers will continue to require information on the history and treatment of sites. Contamination from a site may also affect other land or water, and purchasers of affected land and bodies responsible for environmental protection will need to refer to registers for information on the sources of such contamination.
In addition, deregistration of sites after treatment would have to be carried out by the local authorities responsible for registers. They would thus give an implicit assurance that the site in question was free from contamination. This would raise questions of liability if contamination was later found still to be present. It is unlikely that many authorities would be willing to give such an undertaking.