Environmental Protection Act 1990 - Part IIA Contaminated Land: statutory guidance edition 2

Remediation Notices

16 Section 78E(1) requires a remediation notice to specify what each person who is an appropriate person to bear responsibility for remediation is to do by way of remediation and the timescale for that remediation. Where several people are appropriate persons, section 78E(3) requires the remediation notice to state the proportion which each of them is to bear of the costs of that remediation (see Chapter D of Annex 2). Section 78E(6) then provides that regulations may lay down other requirements on the form and content of remediation notices and the associated procedure.

17 Regulation 4 and Schedule 2 set out the additional requirements about the content of a remediation notice. The overall intention is to make the notice informative and self contained. There should be a clear indication of what is to be done; by whom; where; by when; in relation to what problem; the basis for the authority's actions; who else is involved; the rights of appeal; that a notice is suspended if there is an appeal; and other key information.

Copying Remediation Notices to Others

18 As well as serving the remediation notice on the appropriate person or persons, regulation 5 requires the enforcing authority, at the same time as it serves a remediation notice on the appropriate person(s), to send a copy of the notice to:

(a) anyone whom the authority considers to be the owner or occupier of any of the relevant land or waters, and whom they have therefore consulted under section 78G(3)(a) about rights that may need to be granted to enable the work to be done;

(b) anyone whom the authority considers will be required to grant rights over the land or waters to enable the work to be done, and whom they have therefore consulted under section 78G(3)(b) about such rights;

(c) anyone whom the authority considers to be the owner or occupier of any of the land to which the notice relates and whom they have therefore consulted under section 78H(1)about the remediation to be required; and

(d) SEPA, where the local authority is the enforcing authority, or the local authority, where SEPA is the enforcing authority.

19 It will be good practice for the authority to indicate to the recipient in which capacity consultation because of imminent danger of serious harm (see sections 78G(4) and 78H(4)), he copies should be sent to those who would have been consulted if there had not been an they are being sent a copy of the notice. Where a remediation notice is served without emergency.

Model Notices

20 In the interests of consistency and minimising preparatory work the form of the remediation notice is prescribed in Schedule 2 to the 2000 Regulations.