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Contaminated land regime

An introduction to the Contaminated Land Regime, including links to the legislation and guidance and our report 'Dealing with Contaminated Land in England (2002)'.

Legal framework

The contaminated land regime, which is set out in Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, was introduced in England on 1 April 2000, and on 15 September 2001 in Wales.  A similar regime was introduced in Scotland on 14 July 2000.

    Part 2A was inserted into the 1990 Act by s.57 of the Environment Act 1995.  Regulations were made and Statutory Guidance issued in England and Wales, but these were replaced in 2006 when the regime was extended to cover radioactive contaminated land.

    In England a Circular was also published - the current version is 01/2006. These documents can all be found on the contaminated land pages of both Defra and the Welsh Asembly. 

    Part 2A provides a risk-based approach to the identification and remediation of land where contamination poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.

    The regime is jointly regulated by local authorities and ourselves (or in Scotland, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). It has to be stressed that local authorities take the lead role in contaminated land incidents.

    Publications on contaminated land

    We published a State of Contaminated Land report in 2002. This was called 'Dealing with Contaminated Land in England'.  We will be publishing a new report for England and Wales in 2007/08.

    Note that local authorities are the main regulators and take the lead role.