In the framework of the Regional Policy Declaration (DPR) setting out the priorities for action by the Government of the Walloon Region (Belgium) for the 2009-2014 parliamentary term, a particular focus was placed on integrated and sustainable soil management, in particular the soil of abandoned industrial sites, in line with spatial planning policy. In this context, the government partners expressed their wish to ‘scale up the rehabilitation and conversion of polluted sites’ and stated that Wallonia needs an ‘active policy for the remediation of brownfield and depot sites’ and a ‘policy for the rehabilitation of polluted sites’ with the following objectives.
“Reducing impacts on the health of local residents and on the environment; — the parcimonious use of soil by the reuse of the remediated land for economic, environmental, recreational or habitat purposes, in the absence of health risks; — improving attractiveness; — the quality of Wallonia’s living environment’.
The reality on the ground is complex. Over time, a large number of actors – private, public and mixed – have emerged, whose social purpose has been directly linked indirectly, primarily or indirectly, to the remediation and rehabilitation of abandoned industrial sites, their repurposing or even their conversion, or even industrial redeployment from them.
These are – bodies of public interest (PIO) such as the Scientific Institute for Public Service (ISSeP), placed directly under the authority of the Minister for the Environment – public limited companies governed by public law, derived from public business support bodies, such as the public environmental quality aid company (SPAQuE), in which the Walloon region is a 100 % shareholder, companies derived from inter-municipal economic development associations to which they are associated, such as the company responsible for the remediation and renovation of industrial sites in the Walloon Brabant (SARSI) or the company for the renovation and remediation of industrial sites (Sorasi), inter-municipal economic development themselves, not to mention the multitude of private companies active in this sector.
The soil remediation sector in the Walloon Region has, over time, been the subject of a number of features such as:
— remarkable achievements have been made available to various stakeholders,
— various entrepreneurial initiatives by the heads of the public bodies involved donate the sector and related fields, often under the leadership of the ministers successively responsible for the matters concerned,
— changes in the areas of activity of the actors,
— a gradual spill-over of the initial social objects of some of the public actors,
— the emergence of opportunities for distortion of competition rules between the various players;
— a lack of overall vision and coherence brings the different approaches over time.
These various elements have gradually led to a degree of complexity for the operation of the sector, as well as areas of imprecision. They have also given rise to a number of etinterrogations regarding the exact roles, the legal bases underlying the activities and the scope of action of the various actors, and the effectiveness of the architecture of the donating sector as a whole. It is in this context that the Minister for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Mobility wants to clarify, ‘on the basis of an assessment, the roles of each of the actors in the soil sanitation sector (administrations, SPAOuE, ISSeP, SARSI, Sorasi, etc.) with a view to efficiency and complementarity’, in accordance with the guidelines set out in the DPR.
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