Land poison could trap lawyers

Environmental solicitors last week stepped up their jockeying for position over the new contaminated land regime, which is bringing with it more work.

And they have warned other property lawyers that the regime is a potential negligence trap.

City firm Nicholson Graham & Jones has formed the Land Pollution Consortium - with surveyors Rogers Chapman and environmental management consultancy Stanger Science and Environment - to offer clients multi-disciplinary advice on contaminated land.

The consortium is targeting landowners, developers and property occupiers to help them manage contaminated land and property assets.

It also hopes to advise local government on regulatory and land management issues.

On 1 April 2000, a new regime came into force, giving local authorities and the Environment Agency the power to insist that contaminated land is remediated where there are unacceptable risks to health and specified property and ecological areas.

Critically, the regime includes retrospective powers.

Nicholsons partner John Garbutt said: 'As one of the first to industrialise, this country has inherited a substantial legacy of contaminated land and water.'

Valerie Fogleman, head of Barlow Lyde & Gilbert's environmental liability group, said her department's work 'has picked up considerably' over the last year.

Companies increasingly recognised the need to factor in contamination when buying land or the shares of companies that own land, she added.

Ms Fogleman warned that all solicitors dealing with land, both commercial and residential, need to take care.

'There are enormous negligence risks through not being aware of this [new regime] and the ease of transferring liabilities during a transaction.'

Meanwhile, a survey of brownfield sites - which includes contaminated land - managed by Addleshaw Booth & Co showed last week that there may be substantially more land available for redevelopment in the UK than previously thought.

The National Brownfield Sites Project, developed by Urban Mines, a not-for-profit environmental organisation, found, in places, many more sites than previously identified.

Victoria Joy, the environmental consultant at Addleshaws who managed the project, said the findings 'obviously have implications for development and for attaining the government's target of 60% of new housing to be sited on previously used land rather than in the green belt and other sensitive areas'.

Neil Rose