The potential use of local government planning data for soil contamination analyses

Contamination information is obtained at considerable expense through site investigations by developers in the UK. This field information is submitted to local government as part of the planning process. Local government, therefore, has a vast resource of site-specific contamination data for developments in their area. These data are focused on brownfield sites. They are in hard quality format with some data quality issues, particularly for older site investigations. This research study presents the results to access and analyse this data. The dataset is evaluated in terms of the information available, its form, quality and the potential use of this information for researchers, regulators and developers. A preliminary analysis of the data is presented in which the main contaminants in the study area were investigated and local anomalies such as elevated lead levels were highlighted. In addition, asbestos was found at low concentrations in 25% of made ground soil samples; a result requiring further study to inform future risk assessment. The potential use of this countrywide dataset is currently limited by the hardcopy format and storage of the dataset. Updating the submission to digital format could result in a vast national resource of brownfield information.