The race to the include environmental reports within Home Information packs has been for many an unseemly scrabble, but the Government have ruled that whilst they are authorised for inclusion, they such not be mandatory. Only reports of flooding should be dealt with as a mandatory consideration.

This means that the consumer needs to fall back on the professional acumen of their advisor. This particularly exposes the solicitor to have the make the appropriate enquiries and to pass on the results of any searches they obtain to the consumer in what is becoming a difficult area for all property professionals. The contaminated Land Warning Card published by the Law Society in England and Wales in 2001 states that 'in every transaction you must consider whether contamination is an issue'.

With so few solicitors who also have in house teams of environmental lawyers, communicating environmental risk is left to the role of the search providers. In the case of Envirosearch Residential for which I am responsible, this entails ensuring that we communicate in a clear concise and simple manner that the man in the street let alone the professional advisor will understand, whilst at the same time fulfilling any requirements of the members of the Council for Mortgage Lenders. When the Warning Card was first published in 2001, the Council for Mortgage Lenders were concerned not just about environmental risk, but the impacts this would have upon property values.

In only three percent of all cases, a report reveals that Further Action is needed. What is important to understand is that this is not a 'fail' because that would immediately blighter the property, but a request for the Property Professionals to consider the information in their possession to see whether or not this has an impact on the transaction. Invariably, a solicitor has what they need to answer the queries raised by the Further Action report, and not further enquiries need to be made. The transaction is normally completed.

In a small number of cases, there are situations where enquiries to the local authority, particularly the Contaminated Land Officer have to be made. Some of these further enquiries are also made by Wilbourn Associates on behalf of members of the public. Whilst the majority of local authority responses are very helpful, some create enormous uncertainty and this affects the property purchase. This occurs when the response of the local authority use words to the effect that whilst the property is not believed to be on contaminated land, it has not been inspected 'yet'. The word 'yet' is commonly used which provokes the response of when and why. In assessing further enquiries to the local authority who are already burdened with the numbers of enquiries that they are receiving from home owners and their advisors not withstanding any work where commercial transactions are concerned.

Communicating contaminated land issues to members of the public is challenging and difficult. As part of my research for this article I chose to enter the search term 'contaminated homes' into the BBC website which revealed a litany of reported cases across the whole of the United Kingdom. It is a significant worry particularly where members of the public have their lives tied up in their homes which they thought they would be able to enjoy without any fear from Britain's toxic past affecting their rights to live there or the value of the property.

Take Seaton Carew near Hartlepool for example where 100 gardens were found to have high levels of arsenic lead and zinc. The entire clean up operation may cost as much as 4 million pounds, but the Local Authorities has turned down support to publicly fund the clean up operation. Whilst the council have gone on record of saying that it is 'committed itself to getting this process done as quickly as possible so the residents problems of living in this contaminated area are sorted out quickly', according to Mr Ian Parker, the Councils Director of Neighbourhood Services. However, this story first appeared in the BBC over a year before this statement in September 2005. Any resident attempting to sell their property would have found it difficult to do so. The time, worry and personal stress this would have caused is in addition to any loss of sales or attempts to re negotiate property values. The Hartlepool's District Councils report to the cabinet on 13th March 2006 states that 'this is a highly sensitive issue which is having a severe impact on the residents of a large residential estate'. It would appear that Government are now considering a supplemental grant to cover the cost of the clean up and during the period before the Local Authority can recover the remediation costs from the appropriate person.

Communicating risk to the public is a delicate business. On the one hand it is important to be as informative and as inclusive as possible, on the other it is important to discharge the statutory duties which the contaminated land regime forces upon local authority. It is a difficult tightrope. This is particularly true where remediation is required and homes are affected. It is important not to be ambiguous in the responses to normal enquiries made on a regular basis leaving some perspective home owners uncertain as to whether the property they are buying is contaminated or not.