§ Mr. Harry GreenwayTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what arrangements he has made in regard to the allocation of capital resources for local authorities to tackle contaminated land in 1995–96. [26101]
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§ Mr. AtkinsThe Department of the Environment has today written to 49 local authorities and waste disposal authorities informing them of the Secretary of State's intention to issue supplementary credit approvals for 1995–96 totalling nearly £8 million in respect of capital expenditure on 109 new projects to investigate or carry our remedial work to contaminated land.
The Department has already written to 40 authorities about making SCAs totalling £6.7 million available this year in respect of 127 on-going projects from previous years.
Between 1990–91 and 1993–94 SCAs worth nearly £40 million were issued to enable work to be undertaken on over 800 contaminated sites. A figure for SCAs spent for 1994–95 is not yet available as authorities are in the process of submitting final returns for that financial year.
The SCA programme for contaminated land is aimed at tackling problems on sites in local authority ownership or where they have responsibility to take action and cannot recover their costs. The Department operates an assessment and prioritisation procedures to ensure that the available funding goes to projects representing the greatest threat to health or the environment.