Local Authorities are currently awaiting the outcome of the latest round of applications under Defra’s Contaminated Land Capital Grant Programme, which closed last week.

Defra runs the Programme to help local authorities in England cover the cost of implementing contaminated land legislation. The Programme funds two types of work: (1) intrusive site investigations, which aim to find out whether a site is contaminated and, if so, to inform how it should be remediated; and (2) site remediations, which aim to ensure that contamination at a site will no longer pose a significant risk to people or the environment. Over the last ten years the Programme has funded over a thousand projects across England.

Under the Programme, a local authority can apply to Defra for funding, explaining what a proposed project would involve, why it is necessary, and how much it will cost. Applications are then sent on to the Environment Agency who assess each project on technical merit and value for money grounds, making adjustments to work and costs if necessary. If the Programme is oversubscribed, a priority score given to each application helps to prioritise bids. Defra will then decide whether to pay (using priority scoring to sift bids if need be) and pays successful bids.

The 2009-10 Contaminated Land Grant Programme has seen a considerable restructuring of the grant application process, motivated by a desire to make the process more open and transparent. The changes mean that Defra now needs to work more closely with local authorities to try to ensure that funds are spent in the same year in which they are allocated. Local authorities have also been required to submit more financial information than was previously the case.

There are two application windows each financial year, each lasting approximately six weeks. The window from November 2008, which closed earlier this month, invited bids for work to be carried out during the financial year from April 2009. A second window will open during the summer of 2009 to allocate a further portion of funds for work also to be carried out before March 2010.