I was heartened to see that Brent has been successful in obtaining 1.4 million pound grant to clean up contaminated land. This is despite the Con Dem government cutting the amount available for such clean ups in George Osborne's "emergency" budget last year.
However, I feel sorry for the other authorities who applied and did not get the grant. As part of the process, they would have had to identify which land was contaminated. That means that they would have to an area with a dangerous level of contaminant, "receptors" (jargon for people) and a pathway between the two. once they do that, they are committed to cleaning the land up. Therefore all the authorities that failed to get any grant now find themselves obilged to find the money to clean up the land, effectively a one off stealth tax on them.
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