Decision Maker: Waste & Street Scene Policy Committee

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Date of Decision: February 14, 2025

Purpose:

Content: 13.1.1 Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 deals with the identification, prioritisation, determination, and remediation of contaminated land. The legislation places a statutory duty on local authorities to inspect their area for the purpose of identifying potentially contaminated sites and for the further inspection of such sites.     13.1.2 Under statutory guidance local authorities should take a strategic approach to the identification of land which merits detailed individual inspection. The guidance confirms that local authorities should keep their strategies under periodic review to ensure it remains up to date     13.1.3 Members of the committee considered a report of the Executive Director Neighbourhood Services seeking approval of an updated Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy, in line with updated guidance and current working practice.     13.2 RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Waste and Street Scene Policy Committee approves the Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy. This is to ensure compliance with the Council’s statutory requirements set out under guidance.     13.3 Reasons for Decision     13.3.1 SCC has not updated its contaminated Land Strategy since 2013. The 2013 Land Quality Strategy references outdated and withdrawn guidance, and the technical background in the 2013 report duplicates information from the published guidance and is not written in accessible plain English.     13.3.2 The updated 2025 Contaminated Land Strategy set out in Appendix A has been renamed to make it easier to find for land contamination professionals and land conveyancers, it has been rewritten to reference current guidance and, in order to simplify the document, has summarised rather than duplicated the information from that guidance.     13.3.3 This updated report is required by the Statutory Guidance.     13.4 Alternatives Considered and Rejected     13.4.1 Alternative Option 1:   Amending the Inspection Strategy to change SCC’s approach from passive inspection and move to a programme of proactive inspection of land. ·       Currently, SCC passively inspect land via the Planning process, and active investigations of Contaminated land are based on emergent needs, reactive to new situations where potential risk is identified. ·       Given budget pressures, it seems unlikely that SCC would be able to transition to a proactive approach in the foreseeable future, given that a reactive/monitoring approach is acceptable under the Statutory Guidance, and given the lack of available funding from central government. ·       Regardless of funding pressures, before proactive inspections can be undertaken, land is required to be prioritised before this can take place. Prioritisation of land is in progress and is included within the current revision of the Strategy. This work is estimated to take years at the current resource availability. ·       Other councils which proactively investigate land have dedicated Contaminated Land teams which are internally funded. This is not currently possible at SCC. ·       This option was therefore rejected at this time, although future revisions of the Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy may include proactive inspection of land.     13.4.2 Alternative Option 2:   Do Nothing and keep the current 2013 revision of the Land Quality Strategy. This option was rejected, as the Statutory Guidance recommends that this document is updated every 5 years and therefore the revision is already overdue