COUNCIL leader Bob Howarth has voiced his concerns about the potential cost of an action plan to tackle contaminated land.

The BEN revealed fears yesterday that a strategy setting out how the authority will identify contaminated sites -- and what should be done about them -- could come with a multi-million pound bill.

If hazards are identified, the landowner must meet the bill for ensuring the land is safe.

But where the original polluters cannot be found, or it is council land, taxpayers are likely to bear the cost.

Council leader Cllr Bob Howarth told a meeting of the council's executive that he hoped the Government would support councils such as Bolton in areas with a strong industrial heritage.

He said: "I just wonder when these new strategies come along whether anybody works out where the money is coming from.

"If the Government is insisting on this then they do need to help councils, particularly those authorities like us which have a special problem."

Officers described the strategy, which the Government has ordered all councils to produce as part of the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, as "problematic" and "a can of worms".