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Contaminated land

Contaminated land

This page provides information for the public, developers and consultants about contaminated land in Northumberland.

Contaminated land

Historic industrial processes such as gasworks, mines and landfills have left chemicals in the ground that can pollute soil and groundwater. Brownfield sites are those having a previous potentially contaminative use, such as foundries and gas works site.

Apply for screening assessment for contaminated land

Contaminated land - our duty

We have a responsibility to check that sites in Northumberland are not causing harm to human health or the environment. Our duty is to:

  • Identify and remove significant risks to human health and the environment.
  • Ensure contaminated land is made suitable for its current use.
  • Ensure remediation (clean-up costs) of the land is feasible and sustainable without causing unnecessary hardship, stress or further damage to the environment.

We keep an up-to-date record of sites listed for further investigation. Our Contaminated Land Strategy sets out our approach for inspecting sites.

There are currently zero entries on the public register of contaminated land. To inspect the register free of charge, please make an appointed during office hours at Fire Station Headquarters, West Hartford Business park, Cramlington, Northumberland, NE23 3JP. Tel 01670 621110.

Who is concerned with contaminated land?

You may be interested in contaminated land because:

  • You are buying a property and the environmental search has failed.
  • You are developing a brownfield site which may need remediation work.
  • You have been affected by a leak or spillage of oil or chemicals.

For site specific queries, your enquiry will be logged as a request for information under the environmental information regulations. Please see below for the charges of this service.

For developers, sites will need assessment to ensure the site is suitable for use. The statutory guidance is now contained in Land Contamination Risk Management (LCRM) produced by the Environment Agency (this is the replacement to CLR 11) and is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-contamination-risk-management-lcrm

There is a useful introduction which provides a guide through the entire process and the longer LCRM documentation which is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/land-contamination-risk-management-lcrm/lcrm-before-you-start

There is also our adopted guidance for dealing with land contamination in the development on land affected by contamination produced by The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Pollution Advisory Group (YALPAG) which outlines procedures to follow

Preferably, you should carry out a phase one preliminary risk assessment prior to submitting a planning application. This will identify whether further intrusive site investigation works are recommended to identify risks.

Planning conditions may apply for investigation and remediation if necessary.

The council will investigate incidents where land may have been contaminated by spillages or leaks to determine if "environmental damage" has been caused and ensure that sites are remediated to an acceptable standard for their current use, in accordance with the Environmental Damage Regulations 2015. Environmental Damage Regulations 2015. Failure to clean up pollution could lead to land being determined as contaminated in the future.

Environmental information requests

Requests for information relating to environmental searches will be dealt with under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Environmental information requests can be provided free of charge for up to one hour of work, plus an additional £25 per hour thereafter.

As a general "rule of thumb", most simple requests for environmental search failures take more than one hour but not more than two hours. We will consult our database of sites, including those listed for further investigation and the priority they have been assigned.

More complex requests involve retrieving information from our database, as well as addressing site specific queries you may have, such as:

  • complaints about pollution
  • records of spillages
  • ground conditions

Following your request, an officer will advise you of any charges and how long it will take to collect the information. Once payment is received, we will send the information to you within 20 working days. If we do not receive payment within 60 days of your request, we will assume you are not proceeding.

Alternatively, you can view this information by arrangement at our offices. This service is free of charge. There is a small charge for any photocopying and printing you require:

Photocopies Charge per sheet:

A4 Black and White 15p A3 Black and White 20p A2 Black and White £1.50 A1 Black and White £2.00 A0 Black and White £3.00 A4 Colour 20p A3 Colour 25p A2 Colour £3.50 A1 Colour £4.00

Please telephone to make an appointment on 0345 600 6400 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

The Information Commissioner's Office website offers more advice regarding your rights to access information.

The charges for officer's time to retrieve and collate any information and to compile a response are:  

Hours Spent Cost
Up to 1 hour for a simple request £0
Up to 2 hours £25
Up to 3 hours £50
Up to 4 hours £75
Up to 5 hours £100
Up to 6 hours £125
Additional hours plus £25

There is no VAT charged on this.

Related contaminated land documents

Related contaminated land webpages and online documents

Pollution - contact us

Get in touch with the council if you have any pollution issues you think we can assist with.

For more information, please contact us here.

Last updated on 30/05/2025 16:16