|
Emma Williams digs up some
disturbing home truths about who pays when you find you're
living on contaminated land
 You've finally persuaded your
bank manager to give you that mortgage, you've seen the home of
your dreams, it's right in the city, it has sea views, it has a
garden. You're hardly unpacked when a note from the council
arrives stating that as your house was built on an old landfill
it is now a high risk contaminated land site. But that's not
all. The owners of the dumping ground cannot be traced so not
only could you become ill, but are liable for the cost of
rectifying the problem.
If this scenario sounds far
fetched in this city, situated in a region that has seen the
second highest house price rise in the UK, then read on, as the
recent implementation of part II of the Environmental Protection
Act 1990 could affect you. The Act clearly states that legal
responsibility for contaminated land lays with the current owner
if a "past polluter" cannot be traced. So your health
and pocket could suffer from something you had nothing to do
with.
"No one would buy a
second-hand car without at least checking under the bonnet, but
how many of us do that when we buy property?" asks Chris
Taylor, operations manager at Brighton-based environmental
consultancy Groundsure. Most people believe the conveyancing
process would highlight anything that could affect your health
or bank balance, but you will not find out if your current or
future home is built on contaminated land unless you conduct an
environmental assessment, which does not come as standard.
"When you buy a home, ask
your solicitor or licensed conveyancer to carry out an
environmental search on your property," explains Chris.
"The reports are not expensive and are designed to
highlight information such as historical land use, flooding,
subsidence and risk from toxic substances." And if you
think this couldn't possibly be a problem near your home, think
again. Gas works are well known as potentially highly
contaminative, with an additional potential risk of explosions.
Some areas of Kemptown and Hove are actually evacuation zones -
if there's a leak, it's everybody out.
As one of the only three
environmental businesses in the UK that offer such reports, and
the only one that offers interpretation, Brighton-based
Groundsure can help. "You can get the reports from other
agencies, but they may not be able to interpret what they find,
and at the end of the day you need to know what the results
mean." But why all the sudden fuss? According to Chris it's
part of the government's plan to clean up the way we use and
abuse, our environment.
"The Environmental
Protection Act is a huge piece of legislation reviewing the
arrangements for dealing with 'unacceptable, actual or perceived
threats to health, safety or the environment, taking into
account actual or intended use of the site.' " This means a
clampdown on things developers or companies used to get away
with. In the past when land was redeveloped, for example
industrial property changed to residential use, guidelines were
less strict and hardly enforced. "Now, local authorities
play a bigger part in ensuring land contamination does not take
place. Many developers are now building on brownfield sites, so
if they have not carefully investigated, removed and rendered
potential contaminants harmless, then these could affect you in
terms of health and property devaluation."
If chemicals such as phenols,
which could leak from, say, printing companies, gas works and
photographers, leak into our water supply you could be drinking
contaminated water and your carefully cultivated organic veggie
patch might not be as green as you'd hoped.
Under the new Act all local
councils in the UK have a statutory duty to tell you what's
going on in and around your back yard. They have to produce a
contaminated land strategy, a plan of how they will unearth and
deal with contaminated land and maintain and publish a public
register of contaminated sites leading to remediation notices.
But it might save you from buying a potentially high risk site.
A spokesperson for Brighton and Hove Council says it introduced
its strategy in June. "We have been working with 13 other
authorities in Sussex to draw up the strategy which was sent to
the Environment Agency well within the Government
deadline."
"Work is now being carried
out to investigate whether there is potentially contaminated
land in Brighton and Hove. If or when the council identifies
potential sites, details will be put on a public register for
all residents to inspect." Chris says, "Each council
will deal with its obligations differently depending on the
amount of funds they have. One council has already told us it
has no strategy or register and has no intention of doing so as
they just don't have the cash. The whole process of actualising
the strategies could take from five to 10 years, it's going to
be a slow process."
But that should not stop you from
becoming more proactive in finding out about what lies beneath
and around your home as some people have already discovered.
"In April this year, Groundsure undertook a review of
remediation work carried out at a new housing development in
Lewes. The work was for a Brighton buyer who was worried about
potential health and valuation effects. After we surveyed the
site we found it had once been a gas works and an iron foundry.
Although the work to put it right was generally of a good
standard and appeared to have been signed off by the local
authority, we identified some areas of concern which required
further consideration." The Brighton buyer decided to pull
out of the sale. "When we provided him with our independent
opinion of the key environmental issues affecting the property,
he decided the risks outweighed the benefits."
Gas works and iron foundries are
not the only high risk sites. Other types of potentially
problematic land in Brighton & Hove include 11 old landfill
sites from Kemptown to Shoreham, docks and wharves, 10 chemical
works, ship building yards, bus depots, dye works, garages and
filling stations, glue factories, and even launderettes and dry
cleaners.can be found dotted around land-use maps of this city
like a bad rash. "Petrol stations can be a big
problem," says Chris, "According to the London Fire
Service, up to 70 per cent of existing underground storage tanks
may be leaking. One place in Galway had petrol leaking up to
300m away from a filling station which caused severe damage to
three properties." Not only that, but Toluene, a
constituent of petrol and also used to make dye and explosives,
can seriously affect the nervous system, kidneys, liver and the
heart.
Groundsure estimates there are
currently 13,000 operating petrol stations in the UK (at one
time there were more than 40,000) and many other industrial or
commercial premises have licenses to store petroleum and
Brighton and Hove had their fair share. Remember the rather
small BP filling station that closed early along Marine Parade?
Yes?, well developers Berkley Homes, an imposing Art Deco style
luxury apartment building now stands in its place Rumour has it
Baby Spice aka Emma Bunton has even bought one of the flats, all
built and sold in just over one and half years, an insider said
she wondered what took them so long. Barbara Peen, press officer
at BP Petroleum UK said the company sold the site in December
1999 and confirmed that whenever they sell a filling station,
rigorous checks are made to ensure it is made environmentally
safe. "This is standard practice, BP would not take chances
with old tanks even if they hadn't leaked."
So will your new Bang &
Olufsen TV have to wait while you fork out for builders to dig a
hole in your road the size of the Pavilion? The council says,
no: "The person or organisation responsible for causing the
pollution bears the cost of clearing it up. In the case of
orphan-sites, where the cause cannot be pinned down, the local
authority may have to pay. It is unlikely that home owners would
be asked to pay, unless they had actually caused the
contamination. The bottom line is we have not yet identified any
contaminated land in Brighton and Hove, nor are we expecting to
find a great deal, if any, as there is not an industrial legacy
here."
Groundsure says although this is
fair comment, what about the industrial sites in Portslade and
the gas works? They point to Armley in Leeds where those who
bought their council houses had to contribute to a several
million pound bill for cleaning up an asbestos problem on their
estate in the eighties, even though they had not caused the
problem, while renting tenants were excluded from paying.
Looking more closely at the Act,
it does make provision for hardship cases but get into court and
it's down to the lawyers to argue over definition as it does not
expressly exclude anyone from liability. Chris says it could pay
to investigate properly yourself: "The Law Society issued a
warning to solicitors recently urging them to conduct
environmental assessments as part of the conveyancing
process," he adds, and research suggests insurance firms
are also preparing for the impact of environmental strategy
implementation. "If your property is built on contaminated
land you may have to move out for several months. There's a lot
of heartache and stress involved. It could totally disrupt your
life."
Useful contacts:
Groundsure: 01273 819500 or visit www.groundsure.com
www.Environmentagency.gov.uk, go to 'what's in your backyard'
www.brighton-hove.gov.uk, for the local contaminated land
strategy
guide for home-buyers
1. Don't panic! Make sure
your solicitor makes adequate due diligence enquiries which
should involve at least a basic environmental report on the
property, and may entail contacting the local authorities.
2. Be sensible. When you
visit a property, look round. Be proactive, make enquiries and
talk to the neighbours.
3. Be aware of flood risk
areas.
4. Recycle. Recycle.
Recycle. Help cut down on landfills and incineration.
5. Get your home insured
against subsidance, contaminated land and flooding.
Bad land: the facts
Brighton & Hove is built on
an aquifer, an underground layer of porous rock containing
water. If pollutants get into it, they are soaked up like a
sponge.
US research has shown a 10%
fall in property prices up to two and a half miles away from
known landfills.
On a national scale house prices
in Sussex have risen by 20.3% since 2000, bettered only by
Oxfordshire with a 20.6% rise
The government in Denmark has
allocated £150 million per year to clean-up contaminated land,
the UK has an estimated £40 billion problem.
Groundsure has estimated that 14%
of land in Brighton & Hove is potentially contaminated.
Materials used to fill sites
such as quarries, pits and ponds were never recorded.
If contaminated land affects just
1% of the 1.4 million coveyances each year this will affect
14,000 people annually.
Although not all landfills
pose a threat, a recent survey by the London School of Hygiene
found that babies born near hazardous waste landfills are
one-third more likely to suffer serious heart, circulatory and
neural defects.
John McBriarty
Prospective buyer
"The estate agents I've spoken to seem pretty confident
there's no contaminated land problems here. One said Hove has
definitely never had any difficulties, but they weren't sure
about Brighton. They also said they had access to a register
that I could look at. I doubt anyone knows the full extent of
problem yet. Maybe it'll be fine but I don't think it's worth
risking it."
Paula Englefield
former Brighton home-owner
"I find it quite disturbing that there is
land that could be potentially contaminated and people have no
idea about it.
Who knows what will happen to the market when people realise? We
had problems selling our house because of damp. In my opinion
that's the current cause of difficulty in buying and selling
property in the City. "
copyright New Insight 2001
|
