Bad Land and Bad Law: The Role of Local Authorities in the Formulation of New Legislation and Guidance for Contaminated Land in the United Kingdom

The 1990 Environmental Protection Act introduced the requirement for local authorities in the United Kingdom to establish and prepare registers of land that had previously been subjected to a potentially contaminative use. This was met with opposition from a range of interests who articulated concerns about potential blight and the effects upon property development. Amongst these interests were those of local authorities of which the larger ones, it is contended, would have good reason to oppose the introduction of registers because of the fear of their consequential impact on local economic development. In this paper the author appraises the local authority responses to the government's proposals for registers of potentially contaminated land and, following the government's decision to abandon the registers, their views of what policy and legal measures ought to be adopted in their place. The author then considers the extent to which these views have been reflected in the 1995 Environment Act which sought, inter alia, to provide a comprehensive legal and policy framework for the resolution of the location and apportionment of contaminated land liabilities.