Environmental searches

The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) provide public access to environmental information held by public authorities. Environmental Information includes all the information that you would expect such as:

• Air, atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape (and the interactions between them) (e.g. contaminated land searches, pests and private water abstractions)
• Information on emissions and discharges, noise, energy, radiation, waste and other such substances (this includes records of  electric vehicle charging points, noise, smoke and waste accumulations complaints for example)
• Measures and activities such as policies, plans and agreements
• Reports, costs benefit and economic analyses
• The state of human health and safety, contamination of the food chain
• Cultural sites and built structures (as they may be affected by environmental factors).

We often find when members of the public make requests to the Council they may be unaware of the EIR Regulations and make environmental requests under Freedom of Information Regulations. Once we receive your request it will be triaged and the most relevant Regulations must be utilised. On occasion your request may fall across both EIR and FOI Regulations so we may have to split your request and answer in two parts.

Contaminated Land Specific Information

Since July 2001 the Law Society issued a warning card to all solicitors setting out the action they should take in all conveyance transactions to highlight contaminated land issues to clients. As a result of this it is commonplace to have an environmental search carried out when buying or selling a property.

The information on the commercially available environmental searches is compiled by a company from its own records; it does not necessarily obtain information from the local council. These reports give a variety of information about the surrounds of the property including the coincidence of it with a previous land use that had potential to cause contamination. There are a number of commercial organisations that sell datasets to the companies that provide environmental searches. 

Where the standard report indicates that the property may be located on or near to a piece of land that was subject to a former use that may have caused contamination, then some companies offer additional services such as a professional view on the likelihood of contamination and risk. It is common for this additional report to suggest that additional enquiries are made of the council. 

The council can provide a summary letter of the information that it holds on land when it receives a request made in accordance with the Environmental Information Regulations. Other than on an individual request basis, the council does not supply this to the commercial companies.

Requesting an Environmental Search

The Council's Environmental Protection Team regularly receives requests for information about. Any requests need to be formulated so that it is clear as to what is being requested. If it is not then there may be a delay in providing the information or it may be refused. 

Requests should ideally be made using our new online request form using the green button below, but requests can be made other ways if required. When using our form it is advantageous to upload a boundary plan so we can be sure on the search request area. Your request should have questions that are clear, precise and unambiguous (not formed in too general a manner or open to misinterpretation). Requests that are not clear, precise or unambiguous will need to be rejected in accordance with Regulation 12(4)(c) of Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (formed in too general a manner).

Submit an EIR Request

Note: If you are making a request that covers the whole borough and you can not see a whole borough rest button on your form, you will need to select an address in the borough so it  can be logged on our systems. We recommend you select our town hall address at RH2 0SH for ease. Please ensure the request is clear that it covers the whole borough though.

Fees and Charges

Charges are levied on an 1/4 of an hour basis for the cost of searching, retrieving, reviewing, processing and preparing your information request.  Our Hourly charge is £63, with nuisance/ residential searches typically taking between 1/2 of an hour- 1 1/2 hours  to complete. Larger industrial commercial premises or complex and lengthy questions potentially taking longer to complete, dependent on the amount and complexity of the information requested.  VAT is not chargeable on our searches. 

Prior to proceeding with the request the cost will be provided to the applicant and no work will commence until confirmation has been received that the fees have been paid via the inbuilt payment function on our new online form. Under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 an allowance of 20 working days to respond to your request is given to local authorities, however we will endeavour to respond with our search findings as soon as we can. 

Further general information on Environmental Information Requests can be found from the Information Commissioners Office website

Planning Conditions and Environmental Searches

It is common place for contaminated land conditions that are attached to a planning permission within our Borough to require an investigation into the contamination status of a site in a phased manner. Therefore, the first port of call is often to undertake a Phase 1 Desktop Study. One of the usual requirements of this is to seek regulatory consultation with the Environmental Health Department. This process would be the same as described above.

Should you wish to make a request for a planning history search or a petroleum search please see the information below:

• Planning History Requests should be sent via email to planning@reigate-banstead.gov.uk.
• Petroleum Searches are undertaken by the Petroleum Officer based at Bucks and Surrey Trading Standards. They can be contacted via email on business.advice@bucksandsurreytradingstandards.gov.uk  or via the following telephone number 0300 123 2329. 

Further information on contaminated land and planning can be found on our dedicated contaminated land and planning webpage.

For information on our privacy policy please see our privacy policy webpage.