This section provides documents on land contamination published by us, including: guidance, policies and R&D reports
Revised Soil Guideline Values and CLEA framework reports published
We have published new Soil Guideline Value (SGV) Reports and supporting technical guidance for a number of substances. These were developed using the revised Contaminated Land Exposure Assessment (CLEA) framework published in January 2009.
These documents provide relevant, appropriate, authoritative and scientifically based information and advice on the assessment of risks to human health from land contamination.
Older guidance including R&D Publications CLR7 to 10 and SGV Reports published between 2002 and 2005 have been withdrawn. Older TOX Reports have only been withdrawn where a new report has been published.
Visit the SGV home page for further information.
New report Dealing with contaminated land in England and Wales, published February 2009
We have now published our report entitled Dealing with contaminated land in England and Wales.
The report gives an overview of the progress made by local authorities and ourselves in identifying and remediating contaminated land. It covers developments since Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 was introduced in 2000 (England) and in 2001 (Wales). Part 2A was introduced by Parliament to help address the problem of historical land contamination and the risks it can pose to people’s health and the environment. We’ve included all reported activity up to the end of March 2007.
We've prepared our report using information supplied to us by local authorities as well as collating our own information on special sites, which are areas of contaminated land for which we, and not the local authority, are the main regulator. This means that it's our responsibility to ensure the appropriate remediation is carried out.
This is our second statutory report on the progress made implementing Part 2A in England and our first report covering progress in Wales.
The report contains additional background information about the Part 2A regime within appendices.
Please note: this report been updated since its launch on 18 February 2009. The term 'contaminated land' used in table 1, page 7 was incorrectly italicised and those italics have now been removed. We've also updated all references to this table. For an explanation of terms, please see page 4 of the report, 'Aim of this report'.
See our first report, published in 2002, entitled Dealing with contaminated land in England (1.15MB)
Defra feedback
Soil guideline values: outcome of the 'way forward' exercise (August 2008)
We welcome Defra's statements on the 'way forward' exercise on soil guideline values and guidance on the legal definition of contaminated land.
We have included Defra's decisions into our development of the following CLEA guidance:
- TOX guidance report
- CLEA report
- CLEA software and handbook
More information is available on our contaminated land exposure assessment (CLEA) page.
Changes to the Part 2A regime
Part 2A has been extended to include radioactivity originating from nuclear installations (December 2007).
In December 2007 the Part 2A regime was modified to cover unacceptable risks to human health from radioactivity originating from nuclear licensed sites.
It is unlikely that any sites meeting the relevant criteria will be found. More information is available on our radioactive contaminated land page.
