Bawtry gasworks contamination

The Bawtry gasworks contamination involved the contamination of land at Bawtry, South Yorkshire, England with hazardous by-products from the manufacture of coal gas. Remediation of the land was carried out at public expense by the Environment Agency (EA), who then sought to recover the costs from National Grid Gas (NGG), then known as Transco, declaring it the "appropriate person" under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and therefore liable on the basis that the contamination was caused by one or more of its statutory predecessors. NGG sought a judicial review in the High Court of Justice where Mr. Justice Forbes ruled that they were liable for the costs of the decontamination work. The ruling was considered a crucial issue by NGG as, if they were deemed liable in this particular instance, then they could be found liable in a substantial number, possibly thousands, of other cases involving former gasworks.

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