Contaminated land and part IIA

Historically, land quality improvements were usually achieved through the planning process and a significant amount of sites are still improved through this route. The 1995 Environment Act inserted Part IIA into the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) 1990 and marked the beginning of a new era of land quality regulation and improvement. Part IIA was not intended to replace existing land quality controls but to complement and work alongside those control methods.

The Council has been given the principal regulatory role under the Part IIA regime. Their duties are as follows;

• Cause their areas to be inspected for contaminated land
• Determine whether any particular site meets the statutory definition of contaminated land
• Act as enforcing authority for all contaminated land which is not designated as a ‘special site’ (the Environment Agency will be the enforcing authority for special sites)
• To establish the appropriate person(s) who should bear responsibility for the remediation of the land
• To decide, after consultation with the appropriate person(s) what remediation is required in any individual case and to ensure that such remediation takes place, either through agreement or by serving a remediation notice on the appropriate person. If agreement is not possible then in certain circumstances through carrying out the work themselves
• Where a remediation notice is served, or the authority itself carries out the work, to determine who should bear what proportion of the liability for meeting the costs of the work
• To record certain prescribed information about their regulatory actions on a public register

The Environment Agency has a support role for local authorities and is responsible for providing local guidance. The Agency has already been active in providing seminars and training programmes for Local Authority officers and has helped to steer the implementation of the new legislation.

The Environment Agency has four principle roles identified in the Statutory Guidance:

1. Assist Local Authorities in identifying contaminated land, particularly in cases where water pollution is involved
2. Provide site-specific guidance to Local Authorities on the remediation of contaminated land
3. Act as the enforcing authority for any land designated as a ‘special site’
4. Publish periodic reports on contaminated land

What is part IIA?

Part IIA is the popular abbreviation for the legislation that has been written for the purposes of contaminated land. The legislation can be found in the documents table below.

What does this all mean?

The Council published its Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy in 2001, and this was reviewed in 2009.

A list of sites with potential concern has been compiled and from this list we will prioritise sites and individual site investigation and risk assessment will begin on the most pressing and high risk sites.

If you are a home buyer/seller requiring information about how this may affect your sale please visit our home buyers and sellers page.

Under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Plymouth City Council is obliged to maintain a public register in support of the contaminated land regime detailing sites that have been designated as Contaminated Land.

The register is available on the contaminated land register page and from the Council’s Public Protection Service, and is available for public inspection during normal working hours.

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