Historic land contamination has arisen through a variety of past practices that did not take account 
of the environment, including processes of industrial change as businesses changed on a site.  These 
changes may have been triggered by a forced closure (for example as a result of an industry going out 
of business), a planned sale or a planned relocation.  These processes of change continue today. 
 It is important that these changes to do not give rise to land contamination of the future.  Consequently 
disengagement from a site needs to be handled as an environmental management process.  
The objective of this workshop was to understand how site closure can be conducted in a smooth and 
effective manner.   Its topics included:  
•	Examples of remediation cases under complex site closure conditions 
•	Cases of site closure that either went as planned or cases where there were lessons were to be 
learned. 
•	Social, environmental, legal/contractual or financial aspects