ABSTRACT
What role does heritage play in the politics of toxic legacies? This chapter examines how heritage can sanitise the memories of contaminated land. Heritage-led regeneration is a key plank in the current neoliberal model of urban planning in the UK where it is intended to stimulate economic and social development in post-industrial landscapes through an appeal to the industrial past; overwriting a narrative of decline and decay with one of pride and productivity. It meets particular challenges in the Lower Swansea Valley, South Wales, because the recent past it needs to overwrite involved a major decontamination programme to tackle the toxic legacy of two centuries of copperworking.
