In order to allow local authorities to fulfil their obligations under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Babtie Group has developed Section 57 Core Tools. This provides a source-pathway-receptor based model that ranks risk and prioritises the inspection of each piece of potentially contaminated land according to its impact on defined receptors. When the model is run, it considers all identified potentially contaminated sites within the local authority area and provides complete risk ranking. A benefit of this approach is that it deals with the strategic and objective requirements of Part IIA legislation and does not require each site to be individually assessed in a semi-subjective manner.

There is no subjective input until the pollutant linkages are individually investigated. Furthermore, the risk ranking allows sites with the highest likelihood of causing `significant harm` to be targeted first. The paper examines significant technological advances in the assessment and management of potentially contaminated land and provides feedback from six case histories.