The New UK Contaminated Land Regime

This paper attempts to produce an overview of the new UK contaminated land regime. Detailed consideration is given to a number of aspects of the new regime. The methodology by which it is proposed to implement the regime is discussed, including definitions of terms included in the Act. The concept of the “Appropriate Person” is described, as the definition of the person responsible for the contamination. This regime places renewed emphasis on land owners and local authorities being aware of potentially hazardous sites under their ownership. This in turn requires a much greater level of awareness and understanding of site risk assessment amongst these parties. With this in mind, this paper also describes a new Windows-based application to address the risk assessment of contaminated land, building on the methodology advocated by the Environment Agency. The application has four analysis tiers, and the ongoing development of these tiers is described.