Elite and elite-lite interviewing: managing our industrial legacy

Look down. Unless you are standing on a previously undeveloped parcel of land, it is likely that the ground beneath your feet is polluted to lesser or greater degrees by certain chemicals, such being the end product of more than 200 years of industrialization and less than 50 years of substantive pollution control legislation. The degree of contamination will depend on a variety of factors including the history of the land, the former and current site uses and the hydrology and geology of the area. If the land is contaminated, there is then the potential for harm to the wider environment (for example, pollution of local waterways) or to living organisms (including man). Questions of land use, land development and land redevelopment as functions of a contaminated land remediation regime are inherently and obviously relevant to broader questions of sustainability. The ground beneath our feet is a precious and overly limited resource.