Contaminated land

Our city has a long history of industrial activity and this has had an enormous impact on the condition of much of the land.  In common with all other major cities in the UK , Manchester has a large proportion of land which has been redeveloped at least once, and on which some contamination may therefore be present.

We are responsible for implementing the new Contaminated Land Regulations. The regulations have required that all local authorities must prepare a strategy - ours is the Manchester's Inspection Strategy for Contaminated Land - to set out how they intend to identify and deal with contaminated land within their boundaries.

Contaminated Land Register

There is a duty to maintain a public register of certain information relating to the remediation of contaminated land.

The public register is not a list of former industrial sites or a record of land which is being investigated by us as potentially contaminated land.

A public register entry is created when any of the following happens:

• the land is designated as a 'Special Site' (in which case the Environment Agency becomes the relevant enforcing authority);
• a 'remediation declaration' is published;
• a 'remediation statement' is published; or
• a 'remediation notice' is served.

There is currently only one area of land within the city boundary that has been formally remediated using the regulatory powers in Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.