Contaminated land and the Environment Act 1995 “Consultation Draft Guidance” Part III-The framework is constructed

This article is third in a series which describes the implementation of the contaminated land provisions of the Environment Act 1995. Initial attempts to implement the new regime on contaminated land were described in “Part I: The Germ of the Idea”¹ and in “Part II”². As indicated in those articles, s. 57 of the Environment Act 1995 (the Act) makes provision for the insertion into the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 1990) of entirely new provisions (albeit initially framed on the statutory nuisance provisions within Part III of EPA 1990) which attempt to provide a framework to require the clean-up, and to apportion the liabilities associated with such clean-up, of contaminated land. This new system, in common with much recent legislation, will depend heavily upon statutory instruments and ministerially issued guidance to provide the detailed mechanisms and assistance for the enforcing authorities, without which the primary legislation could not be operated.