Contaminated land case study - Briton Ferry

Residents living on contaminated land are facing more uncertainty after the Welsh Assembly Government turned down a request for £1.6million in funding from Neath Port Talbot Council, to remediate ten properties on Regent Street West.

The site, which operated as a gas works from before 1875 until the late 1920s, was bought by the former Council of the Borough of Neath in 1936, who subsequently began building houses on it in 1941.

The Council began investigating the area in 2004, after receiving funding to carry out tests on potentially contaminated land. In November 2005 samples were taken from gardens and the results of the investigation, detailing the level of contamination found, were revealed almost two years later, in October 2007.

Since learning that their request for funding had been rejected, Neath Port Talbot Council have met with officials from the Welsh Assembly Government and are planning to submit a revised bid in February 2010. This is the latest setback in a long-running saga for residents, leaving one resident to complain, "Our house is worth nothing now. You could not give it away. Even the building society doesn’t want it back".

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