Contaminated land

Our responsibilities

North Devon Council has the legal duty to identify contaminated land within their areas and legal powers to enforce the law and serve remediation notices.

NDC has produced a strategy to implement the law in order to bring about:

Where possible this will be done in co-operation with all interested parties, using our powers of enforcement only as a last resort.

You can access further information about contaminated land and your home.

Background

The long industrial history of the UK has caused areas of land to become contaminated in various ways over many years. The ground around old factory and chemical sites, for example, may contain substances which can, in some cases, present a risk to people, animals, vegetation, rivers and streams, buildings and the groundwater system from which we obtain our drinking water. Old petrol stations, gasworks, tanneries and even dry cleaners have potential to contaminate.

In addition some naturally occurring substances may represent a risk, for example, due to the geology of some areas of North Devon, arsenic can be found in high levels even on previously undeveloped sites.

But as well as direct health or environmental problems, land contamination can cause economic and financial damage. Uncertainties about remediation requirements and liability for them can cause blight, deter development of brownfield land in favour of greenfield sites, and affect urban regeneration.

However, when identified, effective management of contaminated land issues will prove beneficial to both interested parties and the environment as a whole.