IES supports development of new POSTnote on managing legacy landfills
The IES Land Condition Community (LCC) and National Contaminated Land Officers Group (NCLOG) have fed into the development of a new POSTnote on management of legacy landfill, published on the 22nd January.
The POSTnote outlines evidence on environmental risks from legacy landfill sites in England, related policy and regulation, remediation and reducing risks. To support its production both the LCC and NCLOG submitted a response to POST's call for evidence highlighting key challenges around inadequate budgets for local authorities to assess and manage legacy landfills, increasing risk due to changing climate and sea level rise, and knowledge gaps related to PFAS. The lack of historical records and unrealiable or inaccurate data concerning legacy landfills was also highlighted, along with the need to prioritise areas that pose the most risk, such as those close to surface waters and/or Source Protection Zones.
NCLOG also underlined challenges around monitoring of legacy landfills, including difficulties in determining liability, lack of resources and expertise for local authorities on contaminated land issues, and a lack of incentives to monitor due to the significant political and financial potential risks to local authorities. Moreover, it was noted that if monitoring does take place there is no requirement for risks and liabilities related to legacy landfills to be reported within local authorities.
Following these submissions representatives of both communiites also attended dedicated discussion meetings and acted as reviewers.
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