Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
(1990) that 27,000 hectares may be contaminated,
although the same committee heard other
evidence that suggested a total of 50,000 hectares.
In a wider context, estimates placed before the
committee implied that approximately 185,000
hectares of land in ten EC member countries were
contaminated. In Belgium, geographers have been
instrumental in helping to assess the risks and
compile inventories of contamination (Miller
1994). In England and Wales, the Environmental
Agency has more recently lowered estimates to
between 5000 and 20,000 sites likely to need
assessment under the regime introduced by the
1995 Environment Act (ENDS 1996).
The extent of vacant land is also difficult to
quantify, despite the fact that it has been at the
heart of urban policy throughout the 1980s and
1990s. From 1980 to 1996, a land register recorded
vacant land in the public sector. This revealed that
in February 1987, for example, 40,235 hectares of
vacant land was held by public sector bodies.
Independent analysts suggested that this figure was
a gross underestimate and that the real total of
vacant and derelict land for England alone might
be as high as 210,000 hectares, with between 5
and 10 per cent of land lying vacant in many inner
city areas (Chisholm and Kivell 1987). A survey of
vacant land in 1990 (DoE 1992) formally
identified a total of 49,080 hectares but suggested
that a truer estimate would be 60,000 hectares in
urban districts alone (for comparison, the total
area of Bristol is around 11,000 hectares). By the
early 1990s, vacancy was being tackled by more
aggressive land disposal and development policies
pursued by both the public sector and the newly
privatised companies.
For derelict land, the figures initially look rather
more comprehensive and reliable. Local
authorities in England have been required to
collect information regularly, and the results of
surveys carried out in 1974, 1982, 1988 and in
1993, have been published (DoE 1995). For
Scotland, the only comparable figures come from
a survey of conditions in 1990 (Scottish Office
1992). Accepting the figures from these surveys as
the best that are available, it is possible to examine
the national pattern of dereliction. In 1993, a total
of 39,600 hectares was derelict in England and,
from 1990 figures, Scotland possessed a further
8297 hectares. There was an urban bias to the
pattern, although in England this was only
marginal at 52 per cent compared with the 80 per
cent urban share in Scotland (see Plate 22.1)
(Kivell and Lockhart 1996).
Table 22.1 gives a breakdown of the English
total. This indicates that mineral extraction in
Plate 22.1
The Scottish
Conference and Exhibition
Centre and the Moat House
Hotel in Glasgow, on former
derelict land caused by the
closure of Queen's Dock. Land in
the foreground, also previously
dock land, has remained derelict
since the Glasgow Garden
Festival in 1988, although there
are currently plans to develop it
as a Science Centre using a
grant from the Millennium
Commission.
