Is Land Contamination a real issue in the UK?
Yes, it can be a real issue for investors purchasing land both to continue use and to redevelop land for new builds. The problem is one of historic bad environmental practice, usually dating from times before rigorous environmental and safety standards were implemented in the UK. The UK is a small island, and land is a precious resource. It is not uncommon for land to have been developed a number of times over a period of a 100 years or more. When considering the history and whether pollution is likely to have been caused, a structured assessment is required to evaluate the history of the site, the type of processes and materials that may have been stored/used on the site and the environmental setting (underlying geology and closeness to surface waters for example). The issue is taken seriously enough to require each local authority to appoint suitably qualified land contamination officers and to produce local strategic plans for identifying and dealing with contaminated land. This dut
