The Renewal and Environmental Protection Team are actively involved in identifying areas of the Borough where remedial works are required, and have been extremely successful in securing funding for contaminated land "clean up regimes".

Under the contaminated land provisions (contained within Part IIA of the EPA 1990) introduced on the 1 April 2000, each local authority has a duty to inspect its area to identify contaminated land and ensure that it is managed in an appropriate manner.

Key elements of the regime:

• Inspection of contaminated land
• Determination of contaminated land
• Remediation of contaminated land - suitable for use
• Register of contaminated land
• Apportionment of liabilities
• Recovering costs and relief of hardship

This field lies over a tip previously used for the deposit of gas industry waste. The site is near to housing and had problems related to leachate, gas and general contamination.

The works comprised of the construction of a barrier trench around the boundary of the site to prevent the migration of leachate into adjoining gardens.

Landfill gas ventilation boreholes were installed and an area of heavy contamination removed. An impermeable cap consisting of a layer of clay, sand and topsoil was placed on the surface of the site to prevent infiltration of rainwater and spread of contamination off site.

The perimeter trench collects leachate and from there it drains into a collection chamber. Here the leachate is agitated to remove the methane gas, which vents off safely to atmosphere. Twin compressors are housed above ground to supply the air for the aeration process. The treated leachate then passes to public sewer with North West Water's consent. There is a telemetry link to the Town Hall designed to raise the alert if there is a power failure or problem on site.

Fin drains were installed in the upper sand layer to transport rain water to surface water drainage with the consent of the Environment Agency.

Recent work was undertaken on the site to improve the drainage for the football pitch; this comprised of the provision of French drains across the pitch. This work has been well tested with the recent heavy rain and has so far shown a vast improvement in pitch drainage.

This site is a public open space on the banks of the River Mersey. The site is known to be an old landfill site containing domestic refuse that occupied a former ox bow lake. The site became unstable when the River Mersey began cutting back into the landfill site. There is another landfill site on Carrington Lane just to the south.

Studies revealed that erosion of the landfill by the River Mersey and the potential flow of leachate from the landfill site to the River Mersey to be high risks that must be controlled. To address these issues material from the river bank was excavated to make space for river bank protection works and disposed off on another part of the site. The river bank protection works included a reinforced soil bund, gabion mattresses and rip rap at river level. Perimeter drains were put into collect the leachate.

Further work has identified the need for further monitoring of the leachate but has shown the earlier works to be a success.

This site in Partington in one of our most recent and largest remediation schemes. The area had been contaminated with industrial and paint waste and had high levels of heavy metals.

The project involved removing 6,000 tonnes of waste and replacing it with clean fill. The site has now been levelled and the local residents are considering the options for its future use including a recreation area or a children's play area.

The council was able to reclaim landfill tax from the project and is putting this into other environmental works in Partington.

The final stage of this work was shrub and tree planting on the site. Children from the neighbouring school, Our Lady of Lourdes and the local councillor, Councillor Harry Faulkner, were invited to participate in this.