Environmental Protection Act 1990

143 Public registers of land which may be contaminated

(1) For the purposes of the registers to be maintained under this section, the Secretary of State may, by regulations—

(a) specify contaminative uses of land;

(b) prescribe the form of the registers and the particulars to be included in them; and

(c) make such other provision as appears to him to be appropriate in connection with the maintenance of the registers.

(2) It shall be the duty of a local authority, as respects land in its area subject to contamination, to maintain, in accordance with the regulations, a register in the prescribed form and containing the prescribed particulars.

(3) The duty imposed by subsection (2) above on a local authority is a duty to compile and maintain the register from the information available to the authority from time to time.

(4) A local authority shall secure that the register is open to inspection at its principal office by members of the public free of charge at all reasonable hours and shall afford to members of the public reasonable facilities for obtaining, on payment of reasonable charges, copies of entries in the register.

(5) Regulations under subsection (1)(c) above may prescribe the measures to be taken by local authorities for informing persons whose land is the subject of entries in a register about the entries or for enabling them to inform themselves about them.

(6) In this section—

• “contaminative use” means any use of land which may cause it to be contaminated with noxious substances;

• “land subject to contamination” means land which is being or has been put to a contaminative use;

• “local authority” means—

  (a)

  in Greater London, a London borough council or the Common Council of the City of London;

  (b)

  in England and Wales outside Greater London, a district council;

  (c)

  in Scotland, a planning authority; and

  (d)

  the Council of the Isles of Scilly; and

• “substance” means any natural or artificial substance, whether in solid or liquid form or in the form of a gas or vapour.