Archived press release

Home owners face huge bills as government lets polluters and house builders off the hook

21 November 1996

Friends of the Earth has produced a guide, Buyer Beware, which will help home-owners find out if their house is built on contaminated land [2]. Buyer Beware was produced following the Government's scrapping of the promised public registers on the location of contaminated land after intensive lobbying by house-builders and developers in 1993.These registers would have helped home-owners and lawyers identify whether houses were built on potentially health-threatening poisoned sites.

The Government's proposed new regulations will allow the financial responsibility for cleaning up contaminated sites to pass from polluter to the developer where the polluter cannot be found or where the developer buys the land knowing it is polluted. If the developer then sells on the land then the liability falls on the new land owner - regardless of whether they knew the land was contaminated or not.

Therefore innocent homeowners may find themselves liable to pay for the clean-up of the land on which their homes are built. However, if the homeowner can't afford to pay for the clean-up then the cost will fall on local authorities and council tax payers. Council tax payers therefore face the probability of being stung for massive costs.

Roger Lilley, Industry and Pollution Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

"This a disaster for people who through no fault of their own may be sitting on potentially health threatening contaminated land. The Government's dithering on this thorny issue and their failure to resist pressure from developers has potentially left home owners with huge clean-up bills. Whatever happened to Government's promises to make the polluter pay, whatever happened to the Government that professed to be the house buyers friend ?"

Roger Lilley added

"The Government has consistently ducked the issue of ensuring that the public have the right of full access to all information about the state of the land where they live or are seeking to move. The Government should now reinstate the proposal for a comprehensive register of contaminated land."

NOTES

[1] Dispatches on Channel 4 at 9 pm on Thursday 21st November.

[2] Consultation on draft guidance on contaminated land, September 1996.

[3] Buyer Beware is available from Friends of the Earth, 56-58 Alma St, Luton, Beds LU1 2YZ, price £4.95
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