TAX reliefs creating colossal tax shelters for companies which reclaim contaminated land will activate a surge in contaminated land transactions over the next few years, according to top ten accountancy firm Baker Tilly.

Mr Stephen Berger, partner at Baker Tilly, said: "Contaminated land is the legacy of our industrial heritage.

"The Government is keen to regenerate inner cities and increase the supply of land available for development, particularly brownfield sites.

"The new Finance Act, which has just come into force, contains extremely generous tax reliefs for corporate investors and developers of contaminated land.

"Investors will be able to claim an upfront superdeduction of 150 per cent of remediation expenditure, even where the costs are entirely capital and wouldn't normally qualify for a deduction."

"Today, contaminated land represents a tax gold mine for property companies, thanks to the Government's generosity.

"All industrial societies allowed land to become contaminated, usually through industrial, mining and waste disposal sites.

"However, the British population is growing and reclamation of contaminated land will become a necessity, due to a dwindling number of greenfield sites left for development."

Contaminated land contains substances that, when present in sufficient concentrations, may cause harm to humans, animals, the environment or other targets.

There is no internationally-agreed definition of contaminated land; in the UK, contaminants are classified as hazardous materials, or gasses, that do not occur naturally on a particular site.