Land Use Enquiries

We give information held on historic land use, site investigation carried out to determine level of contamination present and what remedial measures were carried out to make the land safe for current or proposed use.

Response time
The council target for a formal response is ten working days.

Fees, indexed link
There is an administrative charge for the service, which is currently £195 to search for residential premises and £326 for premises with commercial uses.

Please note that the administration charge is per address. If you require information on any surrounding sites you need to identify them and enclose a further fee for additional searches.

Information sources used in the search

1. Public registers
- The Contaminated Land Remediation Register, Environment Act 1990 Part IIA
- Prescribed Processes Register, Environmental Protection Act 1990
- Waste Management Licence Holder, Environmental Protection Act 1990
- The Radioactive Substances Act 1993 Register
- The Planning Regulations 1992 Register, Hazardous Substances
- Private water supplies

2. Archived case files on addresses within the borough

3. Current address-based files and electronic records

4. Geographical information system land use interface

We have a statutory duty to make the public registers readily available for your viewing. For convenience and to improve efficiency we advise you to make prior arrangement to view the registers.

You are also advised that Southwark Council and the above records may not be the only sources of information on contaminated land usage, and you should consider other sources such as local libraries, trade directories or holders of historic land use data. This will depend on the type of information you require.

Methods for providing the information
You may request one of our officers to search all of the above sources for information relevant to the named address.

You may visit the offices at the address below to conduct your own search. Please note that in accordance with the Data Protection Act and internal procedures you can only have access to the public registers. If you require any copies of the information contained in the registers, a charge will be made to cover the cost of photocopying.

GDPR Data Privacy Notice

We are giving you this notice to comply with our responsibilities under the General Data Protection Regulations. For more information on how we handle your personal data to help keep you safe from identity fraud, please see our Data protection requests page.

Southwark Council uses your personal data to process your enquiry about historic and present land uses. Southwark Council does not need your permission to use your personal data for this purpose, and if you do not give us the requested information, we cannot process your enquiry. The land owner may also be liable for formal action in the future, under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The Regulatory Services – Environmental Protection Team will only use your personal information to process your enquiry. The data will be kept for 3 years after the current year.

If you are concerned about how the council is using your data, please contact our Data Protection Officer via accessinfo@southwark.gov.uk or on 020 7525 5000. More information about your rights is available on our website, or via the Information Commissioner.

Information about data collected via online forms