The Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997

Determination of the appropriate person to bear responsibility for remediation

54.—(1) This Article has effect for the purpose of determining who is the appropriate person to bear responsibility for any particular thing which the enforcing authority determines is to be done by way of remediation in any particular case.

(2) Subject to the following provisions of this Article, any person, or any of the persons, who caused or knowingly permitted the substances, or any of the substances, by reason of which the contaminated land in question is such land to be in, on or under that land is an appropriate person.

(3) A person shall only be an appropriate person under paragraph (2) in relation to things which are to be done by way of remediation which are to any extent referable to substances which he caused or knowingly permitted to be present in, on or under the contaminated land in question.

(4) If no person has, after reasonable inquiry, been found who is under paragraph (2) an appropriate person to bear responsibility for the things which are to be done by way of remediation, the owner or occupier for the time being of the contaminated land in question is an appropriate person.

(5) If, in consequence of paragraph (3), there are things which are to be done by way of remediation in relation to which no person has, after reasonable inquiry, been found who is an appropriate person under paragraph (2), the owner or occupier for the time being of the contaminated land in question is an appropriate person in relation to those things.

(6) Where two or more persons would, apart from this paragraph, be appropriate persons in relation to any particular thing which is to be done by way of remediation, the enforcing authority shall determine whether any, and if so which, of them is to be treated as not being an appropriate person in relation to that thing.

(7) Where two or more persons are appropriate persons in relation to any particular thing which is to be done by way of remediation, they shall be liable to bear the cost of doing that thing in proportions determined by the enforcing authority.

(8) For the purposes of paragraphs (6) or (7), where the enforcing authority is a district council, any determination made by the council shall be in accordance with guidance issued for the purposes of those paragraphs which shall be issued in accordance with Article 69.

(9) A person who has caused or knowingly permitted any substance (“substance A”) to be in, on or under any land shall also be taken for the purposes of this Article to have caused or knowingly permitted there to be in, on or under that land any substance which is there as a result of a chemical reaction or biological process affecting substance A.

(10) A thing which is to be done by way of remediation may be regarded for the purposes of this Part as referable to the presence of any substance notwithstanding that the thing in question would not have to be done—

(a)in consequence only of the presence of that substance in any quantity; or

(b)in consequence only of the quantity of that substance which any particular person caused or knowingly permitted to be present.