What is contaminated land?

Warrington has a history of industrial activity including coal mining, heavy engineering, foundries and landfill sites. This has meant that substances such as oils, metals and organic compounds have often remained in the ground.

We have a duty to inspect the borough to identify any contaminated land and arrange for it to be cleaned up.

Contaminated land planning advice & report reviews

We can help with your planning application, whether you already have planning permission or intend to apply.

Please speak to us:

  • Before you apply for planning permission to check contaminated land requirements or the suitability of reports you intend to submit with your planning application
  • After you have planning permission to check the suitability of reports you intend to submit to satisfy planning conditions
  • Virtual meetings (MS Teams) to help manage your planning application

Services we offer include:

  • Report reviews with written feedback
  • Specialist advice about contaminated land planning conditions

We charge a cost recovery fee for advice and report reviews to cover officer time. If you would like a quotation, please email [email protected]

Please also see our fixed charges and officer hourly rates for report reviews:

Environmental search reports for contaminated land

You can obtain information about contamination for a specific area of land by ordering an environmental search report. These reports can help with planning applications, land transfers and when buying or selling property.

The reports contain information about:

The fee for obtaining an environmental search report depends on the size of the area of land and how much information you need.

If you'd like to commission a report for contaminated land, please email [email protected]

Environmental / Contaminated land search
Site is Equivalent to one house size
Fee (exc VAT)Fee (inc VAT)
Site only£94.72£113.66
Site and within 250m of site boundary£189.44£227.33
Site and within 500m of site boundary£236.80£284.16
Site and within 1000m of site boundary£307.84£369.40
Environmental / Contaminated land search:
Site is greater than one house size
Fee (exc VAT)Fee (inc VAT)
Site only£142.08£170.49
Site and within 250m of site boundary£260.48£312.57
Site and within 500m of site boundary£378.88£454.65
Site and within 1000m of site boundary£426.23£511.48
Development on contaminated land: Guidance documents

We recognise that a lot of potentially contaminated sites will be dealt with by redevelopment through the planning process. We're responsible for assessing planning applications and recommending whether Contaminated Land Planning Conditions are required. We then liaise with developers and their agents to ensure that they complete the relevant work.

Information about contaminated land, how it may affect your planning application and what to do about a contaminated land planning condition can be found in our supplementary planning document:

Technical guidance and standards concerning the investigation, risk assessment and remediation of contaminated land can be found in our contaminated land technical guidance document:

Planning conditions for contaminated land

If you'd like to know if a contaminated land planning condition on a planning application has been satisfied or discharged, you can ask us to check our records for confirmation.

We charge a flat fee of £116.00 for each planning application you'd like us to check. We'll then review our records and tell you whether contaminated land planning conditions were satisfied.

If they were not, then we'll tell you what information is outstanding and provide further advice if you need it.

If you'd like to commission a review of our planning records, please ask by emailing us:

Contaminated land strategy

We're required by law to produce a written strategy on how we're going to carry out our contaminated land duties:

Contaminated land public register

The register aims to provide a permanent record of land that is, or has been classed as a 'Special Site' and any actions taken or proposed to remediate contaminated land.

Please note that potentially contaminated land sites, sites under investigation and sites determined as contaminated land will not appear on the register unless further action is taken such as remediation.

30 April 2024
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Time Square Development

Time Square remediation

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Time Square Excavation

Time Square gas works remediation

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Environmental protection

Gas/vapour protection systems