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Janine Dickinson and Darren Watson, Coventry City Council
Coventry City Council's Contaminated Land team consists of five officers, a full time contaminated land officer, and three officers who deal with a mix of Environmental Protection work including contaminated land.
Our Part IIA journey began in 2001 with the publication of our contaminated land strategy, which set down a deadline of 31 March 2007 for our detailed inspections to take place. To get started we collated all available information from historical maps, land use maps, aerial photos and geological/hydrogeological maps for the city. This information was mapped in Groundview, a GIS programme that allowed scores to be assigned for different land uses. The software then identified geographical co-incidences between map features, for example where an historic chemical works which is presently housing. The software assigned an aggregate score taking into account all possible pathways. These grid scores were overlain onto a map of the city to give coloured contours with red areas potentially presenting the greatest risk. It took a total of three years to produce this map to enable us to target potentially high-risk areas.
Fig 1. The Map was created using a series of layers
We then used GIS to reveal the top scoring 5% of sites. This left us with a massive 2660 sites across the city which could potentially be 'contaminated land'. These sites were then prioritised based on risk to human health, which is the main identified priority of our contaminated land strategy. The top 69 scoring sites were identified as priorities and were examined in greater detail. (The number of sites was based on available resources and estimated workload). On review, 29 of these sites were reduced to low risk to human health, as remediation had taken place through the planning regime or there were no significant pathways. The team of officers then produced desk top study reports for each of the 40 remaining sites.
We received funding to investigate a number of sites further and carried out a review of the 40 desk top studies. Based on this, the seven main priority sites (based on the risk to human health) were programmed for site investigations. We consulted residents about our plans to take soil samples from the site for analysis and we asked residents for assistance in allowing us to take soil samples from their gardens. We had a fantastic response from the public with approximately 20% of the residents we consulted responding to say they would allow us to take samples from their gardens. In some cases we had too many offers from residents.
We are currently half way through our programme of soil sampling for the seven sites and the results of the soil sampling so far have been sent to a consultant for a risk assessment to be carried out. The results of one risk assessment have already been submitted to DEFRA who have agreed to provide us with funding to carry out further investigation at the site. We are currently in the process of receiving this funding from DEFRA.
We believe we have been open throughout our investigations so far and believe this has helped us receive a positive response from members of the public who have assisted us in our investigations. We will continue to be open with residents by updating them on our findings.
We plan to set up a rolling programme of carrying out desk top studies for sites around the city and carrying out site investigations on potentially high risk sites that have been identified though our inspection process.
Fig 2. An officer carrying out soil sampling in a resident's garden