Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's strategy and targets are for the remediation of contaminated land.

There are no central targets for the remediation of contaminated land. The majority (around 90 per cent) is remediated via the planning system as part of development and redevelopment.

Some of the remaining land is cleaned up voluntarily by landowners. Legislation under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 is used to clean up land contamination where there is no market solution. Local authorities, and in the case of special sites[i], the Environment Agency, are the regulatory authorities under the Act for ensuring that land contamination that is posing an unacceptable risk is identified and cleaned up. The Act requires each local authority to have an inspection strategy in place to identify potentially contaminated land in their areas.

[i] Sites that have undergone a specific use as listed under section (2) of the Contaminated Land (England) Regulations 2006 are designated as special sites, and include sites that are affecting controlled waters or contain radioactive material.