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11.6 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Alan Meale): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) for raising the important issue of contaminated land at Barton upon Humber. She mentioned persistence; persistent she is. She has raised the issue with me and with my predecessor on a number of occasions. It is to her credit that she has done so. Many new Members could learn from the persistent manner in which she has carried out her role as the local Member of Parliament. I also pay tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), who for many years has raised this and other issues of contamination in the region, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Mr. Cawsey).
As we have heard, the Water's Edge site at Barton upon Humber represents bad news. The site is part of the unfortunate side of our industrial past. It was first used as a clay-pit and then as a chemical factory. That has left the land seriously contaminated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes has rightly pointed out. That contamination is leaching off site into the Barton haven and River Humber and threatens the chalk aquifer underneath the site. It "neuters" the site and prevents it from being returned to a worthwhile use.
Further bad news is that the potential cost of reclaiming the site runs into several million pounds. The complexity of the technical and legal issues involved makes reclaiming the site that much harder. However, I hope to give the House some better news in respect of that dilemma.
We have systems in place to stop the creation of such problems. Many of the current problems on the site are the result of unregulated dumping of chemical by-products and wastes. I am pleased that such practices are no longer allowed. Furthermore, the Environment Agency enforces a stricter system of waste management licensing, which ensures that waste materials are properly treated and disposed of.
The chemical factories that were once on the site would have been subject to environmental controls under the system of integrated pollution control. That system will be enhanced later this year under the European directive on integrated pollution prevention and control. The House will be pleased to learn that my Department has recently carried out a third round of consultation on how to implement the directive and a Bill is under discussion in another place.
The key aspect of IPPC is that, when a licensed installation closes, operators will not be able simply to walk away from the site--as they have done in the case
that we are debating--but will be under a legal obligation to clean up any decontamination and to restore the site to a satisfactory condition, which definitely did not happen at Water's Edge.
I am sure that the House will join me and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes in saying that we hope that not many sites are as bad as Water's Edge. The Deputy Prime Minister himself has, in very strong terms, commented to me that even one contaminated site is one too many, and that it is important that we continue identifying such sites and taking the necessary action to deal with contamination at them. The sentiment is particularly apt in the case of Water's Edge, as the Deputy Prime Minister represents a constituency that is not very far from it.
Later this year, we shall bring into force a new statutory regime for contaminated land, implementing provisions in the Environment Act 1995. The provisions will place on local authorities and the Environment Agency a clear duty to find problem sites and will provide real teeth in ensuring that proper remediation is done. We are also working on improving the availability of technical solutions to the problems of land contamination.
My Department--with the Environment Agency, English Partnerships, its Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland counterparts, industry and the science research councils--is launching a new initiative, entitled CLAIRE, which stands for contaminated land applications in real environments, which will build a network of demonstration sites for innovative remediation technologies.
Although all that may be better news for the future, and we should not be creating any more Water's Edges, we still have to contend with the task of dealing with Water's Edge itself. On that matter, I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes--for her persistent and very hard work on the issue--some good news.
North Lincolnshire council, which owns the site, has been working up proposals on sorting out the problems at the site: to deal with water pollution; to create--as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes mentioned--new wildlife habitats; and to open the site for public amenity use. Like her, I think that those proposals are very imaginative and worth while, and that they will create a major new environmental asset out of a currently horrible environmental liability.
The proposals have been in gestation for some time. As my hon. Friend said, part of the site was purchased, in 1991, by Glanford borough council. The purchase was funded by the derelict land grant, provided by the former Department of the Environment. More recently, English Partnerships has provided further grant support for site investigation and design work. In the 1997-98 financial year, £150,000 was paid for the work to be done.
We are now able to make real progress. Last week, North Lincolnshire council submitted to my Department a formal bid for funding support, under our contaminated land supplementary credit approval programme. SCAs give local authorities permission to borrow money to fund specified capital works. The cost of servicing the debt is taken into account in local authorities' revenue funding in subsequent years.
The contaminated land SCA programme exists to support work by local authorities in dealing with the environmental risks caused by sites for which local authorities themselves are responsible. That might apply when they own the site or contaminated it themselves.
Funding support is available also for orphan sites, where a local authority or the Environment Agency has to deal with a site from which the original polluters have long since disappeared and at which the current owners are not able to pay for remediation.
In the case of Water's Edge, as my hon. Friend said, the site is owned by North Lincolnshire council. The council's bid has been for the first stage of works--to stop current pollution of the Barton haven and the River Humber, and to protect the aquifer under the site. It is a three-year programme which is expected to cost £5.7 million, with £1.2 to be spent in the next financial year.
Discussions are continuing with English Partnerships on funding for the next stage of works--which will be to improve the site's natural habitats, and to open the site, as a water park, to public access. I am pleased to be able to tell my hon. Friend that, in consultation with my colleagues in the Department, I have approved the bid for the supplementary credit approval to fund work at Water's Edge in the coming financial year. My officials will write to North Lincolnshire council tomorrow to confirm that.
Shona McIsaac:
I thank my hon. Friend for that information. I am delighted that the SCAs have been
Mr. Meale:
My hon. Friend is correct. It is borrowing, but it is set against and taken into consideration with other money from central sources. Anyone who tries to give the impression that yet another debt is being laid on the community has misinterpreted the reason for such funding, which is to clear up contamination in special circumstances or to deal with extra needs that an area may have to sort out for its constituents. I understand that some people have been making false allegations about the credit approvals that the Government have allocated. Those in North Lincolnshire council are the best people to judge such a decision. There are many other sites around the country for which local authorities want SCAs. If they were given approval, there would be a clapping of hands and joyous sounds coming from those directions.
I hope that the work can start without further delay. If we debate contaminated land at Barton upon Humber again, it will be to trumpet the success of the reclamation project.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her persistence and endeavour. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole and my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, who is on the Front Bench, for all their hard work to start the process of remediation and clear-up of the contaminated land.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Eleven o'clock.
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