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18 Sep 1996
The Government will give local authorities the duty to pay for the clean up of contaminated land sites where the polluter or owner of the site can not be identified or pleads poverty. Friends of the Earth are demanding that the polluter pay and the Government develop economic instruments to ensure that when polluters cannot be identified costs fall on polluters rather than ordinary tax-payers.
The Government are also failing to give local authorities a timetable for action, which could mean that sites will not get cleaned up until well into the next century.
Instead of giving the public the right to know where contaminated land is in their area they will allow local authorities not to reveal which sites they consider are of no danger to the public or the environment. Hence the public will not be able to police the cash strapped local authorties even though John Major said "we have opened the door to environmental information - every individual and every group will in future have access to the information they need, in order to act as environmental watchdog" (John Major's speech to the Sunday Times conference on the Global Environment 8.7.1991).
Roger Lilley, Industry & Pollution Campaigner said:
"The public are to be sold short yet again. There is no prospect of cleaning up our toxic legacy. The Government is yet again more intent on protecting polluters rather than ordinary tax payers."
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
Media team
