Contaminated land is land that :

  • has been polluted, and
  • may be unfit for safe development and usage, and
  • the affected land needed to be treated or removed first

Contaminated land is usually caused by:

  • previous industrial or commercial use of the land
  • from major waste deposits

You can contact us for advice using our online form:

We have two ways to deal with the legacy of contaminated land:

1. identifying contaminated land

Our Inspection Strategy shows how we identify land in the borough that is causing unacceptable risks to human health and the wider environment.

We follow the legal framework for dealing with contaminated land.

Read Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 on legislation.gov.

Check a property

You can check if a property has been formally determined as contaminated land or if it has previous industrial use.

We charge:

  • £130 for residential searches and
  • £195 for commercial searches

This covers the cost of time spent searching records and preparing the response.

If you want a search to be carried out for your property, contact the Pollution Control Team by:

You can then pay the charge online.

2. Planning and development control

The planning and development control process for developments on a brownfield site ensures that the new development is safe and suitable for its new use.

If risks from contaminated land are identified, planning conditions will be added to planning permission. This is to ensure the new development is fit for its use.

The guide for developers to ensure that they meet the planning requirements is for property owners, developers, architects, builders, and surveyors who want to know what information they should submit to the planning department when they want to develop on potentially contaminated land.