Review of contaminated land policy as registers are scrapped

Environment Secretary Michael Howard caused little surprise on 24 March when he announced that the Government was abandoning its proposals to introduce registers of contaminative land uses. But the issue is to be kept alive by the formation of an official group to review the role of public authorities in controlling land pollution. The most favourable scenario is that this could bring new legal provisions to tackle contaminated land in the Bill to establish the Environment Agency later this year.