Environmental search: what it covers, what it costs and what to check first

An environmental search is a desktop report your conveyancer orders on a property you are buying. It screens public and licensed records for contaminated land and landfill, flooding, ground stability, radon and industrial activity around the address, and returns an opinion — usually “passed” or “further action”. Most lenders expect one; it typically costs £50–£120 and takes a few working days.

Below: what it returns, when you need it, what it costs, what happens if it fails — and a postcode preview of the landfill, incident and storm-overflow records it is likely to flag, so you know before you pay. Reviewed 2026-10-09.

See what the search is likely to flag

Enter the postcode. The preview counts the Environment Agency's former landfill sites within 1 km, permitted landfill within 2 km, substantiated pollution incidents within 1 km and monitored storm overflows within 1 km of the postcode point — the records that turn into the landfill, contamination and permit pages of a search. England only.

What an environmental search returns

Providers differ in layout, but every mainstream environmental report covers the same ground and ends each section with the provider's assessment. The right-hand column is what you can read for yourself before the search is ordered.

Section	What the search shows	What you can check first
Contaminated land & historic land use	Former industrial sites, works, tanks and infilled ground on or near the plot from historic mapping; the council's Part 2A register where published; an overall contaminated-land opinion.	Nothing equivalent for historic land use — this is the search's core value. The Part 2A register is only returned by the search or a CON29 enquiry.
Landfill & waste	Historic and permitted landfill within set distances (commonly 250 m, 500 m and 1 km), waste types, licensed waste sites.	Landfill check — former landfill within 1 km to the footprint edge, permitted landfill within 2 km; sites by outcode.
Pollution incidents, permits & discharges	Substantiated pollution incidents, environmental permits, discharge consents and storm overflows nearby.	Counted in the preview above; the storm-overflow check gives each year's spills for the nearest outfall.
Flooding	River and sea flood zones, often surface-water and groundwater risk, sometimes insurability commentary.	Flood-risk check — recorded flood history and climate allowances; flood zones by outcode.
Ground stability	Natural ground hazards from geological mapping — shrink-swell clay, landslides, soluble rocks, compressible ground — and non-coal mining.	Ground-stability check; subsidence by outcode.
Radon	Radon Affected Area status and the proportion of homes expected above the action level.	Radon check.
Coal & mining	Whether the property is in a coalfield reporting area; a flag to order the CON29M mining search.	Coal-mining check.
Coastal erosion (where relevant)	Shoreline Management Plan policy and erosion projections on a mapped frontage.	Coastal-erosion check.
Air quality, energy & infrastructure	Some reports add modelled air quality, power lines, phone masts, wind and solar schemes and planning applications nearby.	Air-quality check; planning and mast layers vary by provider and are not part of the preview.

Do you need an environmental search?

If you are buying with a mortgage, in practice yes: lenders expect the conveyancer to carry out the searches a prudent buyer would, and the Law Society's contaminated-land practice note asks conveyancers to consider contamination in every transaction. Under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 the cost of cleaning up contaminated land can fall on the current owner when the polluter cannot be found — which is why the profession treats the search as routine.

Cash buyers can decline it; most conveyancers will ask for a signed waiver. The question is whether you want to find out about a former tip from the search or from your buyer's search in five years.
Flats are usually searched like houses — the land under the block is what matters, and ground-floor and basement flats carry the ground-gas question.
New-builds on former industrial or landfilled land will have had a site investigation and remediation as planning conditions; ask the developer for the verification report rather than skipping the search.
Remortgages rarely require one; some lenders accept a search-insurance policy instead.

What an environmental search costs

Published prices as at 2026-10-09, by type of product. Conveyancers usually add the search to a pack and pass the cost through at or near the provider's price, so the line on your completion statement should match these ranges.

Product	Typical published price (inc. VAT)	Notes
Environmental search (standalone)	£50 – £120	Contamination, landfill, flood zone, radon, mining, ground stability. Turnaround 1–3 working days.
Combined environmental + flood report	£80 – £180	Adds surface-water, groundwater and insurability commentary; the usual choice where the flood zone is 2 or 3.
Search pack (local authority + drainage & water + environmental)	£250 – £450	The local-authority fee varies by council; see search fees by council.
Phase 1 desk study (after “further action”)	£400 – £1,500	An environmental consultant's review of the search, historic maps and a walkover; no sampling.
Phase 2 site investigation	£2,000 upwards	Boreholes, soil and gas sampling. Rare in a house purchase; more usual for development.
Pre-offer property report	£9.99 Lite · £24.99 Complete	Lists the public-record findings for the address before you offer; not a search and not a professional opinion.

What happens if the search comes back “further action”

The provider has found something inside its distance thresholds — most often a former landfill within about 250 m or historic industrial use on or beside the plot — and will not pass the property on the records alone. It is a common result in older industrial towns and does not mean the land is contaminated. The usual routes, in rising order of cost:

Provider review. Many providers will reconsider against extra information — planning history, the seller's knowledge of past remediation, a surveyor's note — at little or no cost.
Environmental insurance. A one-off policy covering clean-up costs if the council ever serves a remediation notice. Sellers sometimes pay for it to keep the sale moving.
Phase 1 desk study. A consultant's report that usually either closes the question or scopes a Phase 2.
Phase 2 site investigation and remediation. Rare for a house purchase; at this point most buyers renegotiate or walk away.

Lenders generally want the point resolved before exchange, so a “further action” result is the single most common reason an environmental search delays a purchase. Knowing beforehand that a former tip sits 180 m from the house is the point of checking first.

The drainage and water search, and where storm overflows fit

The drainage and water search (CON29DW) is a separate report from the water company: whether the property is connected to mains water and public sewers, where the pipes run and who owns them, whether a public sewer crosses the plot, and whether the property is on the company's register of internal sewer flooding. It costs £60–£90 and is part of every normal search pack.

Storm overflows sit between the two searches. They are sewer infrastructure, so they belong to the water company's world; their annual spill records are environmental data the Environment Agency publishes. Neither search routinely prints them. The storm-overflow check shows the nearest monitored outfall and its spills and hours for each year, and the report lists every monitored overflow within 1 km with each year's spills and hours, matched to its permit on the public register where the references align.

Environmental search vs the pre-offer report

They answer different questions at different moments. The search is the conveyancer's professional product after your offer is accepted; the report is what you read before you decide what to offer.

Question	Environmental search	Pre-offer report
When	After the offer, ordered by the conveyancer	Before the offer, ordered by you
Historic land use	Yes — licensed historic mapping	No
Council Part 2A register	Yes, where published	Named as not read, with the CON29 route
Landfill	Within set distances, with an opinion	Every former landfill within 1 km to its footprint edge, every permitted landfill within 2 km, with years in use and gas/leachate records
Incidents, permits, storm overflows	Listed, usually without spill data	Listed and de-duplicated by site, with annual spills beside each permit that matches a monitored overflow
Flood, ground, radon, coal	Yes, with an opinion	Yes — the hazard screen, with every check that could not be run named rather than scored as a pass
Professional opinion / insurance backing	Yes	No — findings and the questions to ask, not an opinion
Price	£50 – £120	£9.99 Lite · £24.99 Complete

What the report screens before you pay for an environmental search for this address

Get the environmental findings — £24.99

One-off · no subscription · Human-checked and emailed to you · see an illustrative sample

The hazard screen for the address: flood, ground stability, radon and coal mining, with every check that could not be run named rather than scored as a pass
Former landfill within 1 km measured to its footprint, permitted landfill within 2 km, substantiated pollution incidents and the permits and discharges within 1 km, with storm-overflow spill counts beside the permits they match
Air quality against the legal objectives, and on a managed coastline the shoreline management policy for each epoch
What stands out at this address — the red and amber flags pulled together and explained

A pre-offer screen of public records, not the conveyancer's environmental search and not a replacement for it; the council's statutory contaminated-land register is named as unread, with the CON29 route to it.

Frequently asked questions

A desktop report your conveyancer orders from a search provider once your offer is accepted. It screens public and licensed records around the property for contaminated land and landfill, flooding, ground stability, radon, coal and industrial activity, and returns an overall opinion — usually 'passed' or 'further action'. It is not a site visit and it does not test soil, air or water.

No law requires one, but most mortgage lenders expect the conveyancer to carry out the searches a prudent buyer would, and the Law Society's contaminated-land practice note tells conveyancers to consider it in every transaction. A cash buyer can skip it; most conveyancers will ask you to sign a waiver if you do.

Typical published prices run from about £50 to £120 including VAT for a standalone environmental report, and £80 to £180 for a combined environmental and flood report. Conveyancers commonly bundle it into a search pack with the local authority, drainage and water searches. If it comes back 'further action', a Phase 1 desk study from an environmental consultant costs several hundred pounds and a site investigation runs into the thousands.

Historic land use and former industrial sites around the property; historic and permitted landfill with distances; the council's contaminated-land register where published; pollution incidents and environmental permits nearby; flood zones and in many reports surface-water and groundwater risk; radon potential; coal and other mining; ground stability from geological mapping. Each section ends with the provider's assessment of whether it affects the property.

The provider has found something within its distance thresholds — often a former landfill within 250 m or historic industrial use on or beside the plot — and will not pass the property without more information. The usual routes are a free or low-cost review by the provider against extra information, a Phase 1 desk study, environmental insurance (sometimes paid for by the seller), or, rarely, a site investigation. Lenders generally want the point resolved before exchange.

The drainage and water search (CON29DW) comes from the water company and answers whether the property is connected to mains water and sewers, where the pipes run and who owns them, and whether it is at risk of sewer flooding. The environmental search is about the land around the property. Storm overflows sit between the two: they are sewer infrastructure, but their spill records are environmental data.

Yes. Much of what the search reads is public: Environment Agency landfill, incident, permit, flood and erosion layers, UKHSA radon potential, Mining Remediation Authority coal data and British Geological Survey ground hazards. The preview on this page counts the landfill, permitted-landfill, incident and storm-overflow records around a postcode, and the report lists them for an address. What neither can read is the council's statutory contaminated-land register — only the search, or a CON29 enquiry, returns that.

Search providers sell environmental reports in all three nations, drawing on Natural Resources Wales and SEPA records where the Environment Agency's stop at the border. The preview on this page reads Environment Agency layers only, so it answers 'not covered' outside England rather than printing a false 'nothing found'; the report runs for Scotland and Wales with each nation's regulator named section by section.

Sources

Environment Agency — Historic Landfill Sites; Permitted Waste Sites (Authorised Landfill Site Boundaries); Environmental Pollution Incidents (Category 1 and 2); Public Registers. © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right. Used under the Environment Agency Conditional Licence.
Environmental Protection Act 1990, Part 2A; The Law Society, Contaminated land practice note; CON29 (2016) enquiry 3.13 Contaminated land.
Search-provider price ranges: published consumer prices read on 2026-10-09; providers are deliberately not named.

Last updated: 2026-10-09