The contaminated land capital grants scheme will be severely cut from April 2014 and then shut down completely on 1 April 2017.
Lord de Mauley announced to all English local authorities in December 2013 that DEFRA will no longer be supporting the costs of investigating and remediating contaminated land under Part 2A. The government did not carry out an impact assessment.
Keith Davidson environmental lawyer at ELM considers the implications of the grant fund announcement.
Enforcement under Part 2A
Local authorities have a statutory duty to identify “contaminated land” posing unacceptable risks and to then secure remediation.
Contaminated Land Officers usually apply to the Defra capital grants scheme to pay for site investigations and remediation work. According to the Environment Agency, the average cost of a site investigation is £14,500 and the average cost of remediation is £105,800.
The budget for the scheme had already undergone significant cuts, decreasing from £17.5 million in 2009/10 down to £2m for 2013/14.
From 1 April 2014 for a three-year period only £500,000 will be accessible annually for high priority cases. Funding then completely stops in 2017.
Local authority Contaminated Land Officers can still apply for the revenue support grant however this is not ring-fenced for Part 2A work.
Industry reaction
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health “sharply condemned the decision to cease funding local authority action on toxic sites which are potentially harmful to human health”.
Principal policy officer Howard Price said: “Some of those old industrial sites have since been turned over to housing and some present unacceptable risks to their new owners and their families. But without financial support from the government, local authorities cannot even identify them, let alone ensure they are cleaned-up.
“The move, at a stroke, effectively negates the statutory duty given to councils by Parliament.”
Implications
The withdrawal of funding effectively ends the statutory contaminated land regime and is bad news for residents living on land that poses a health risk.
Bad news
- 10,000s sites posing unacceptable risks to human health and the environment will be left unremediated
- Contaninated sites will be blighted and may be unsellable
- Uncertainty over CLO job security
- Increased development costs
While Part 2A can still be used as a threat by CLOs, they will have no firepower to commission site investigations, so there will be less enforcement at high-risk sites.
Local authorities will need to focus on achieving better clean-up through planning controls and this could increase the overall remediation costs for developers.