Dealing with Contamination
1) The Planning Process - New Development on Potentially Contaminated Sites
There is a Government target for 60% of all new development to take place on “brownfield sites” (a site which has been used before). This Authority is committed to achieving this target and encourages the most effective use of land within East Staffordshire. However, it is important that any contamination on a brownfield site does not pose a risk to the public or environment and therefore land contamination is a material planning consideration.
New development requires planning permission from the Local Planning Authority, and as part of this process the likelihood of land contamination is taken into account. Where the potential for contamination is identified on a site, we will recommend, via the consultation process, that Planning Conditions are attached to the permission, in order that works to resolve the issues are carried out.
Government guidance to Local Planning Authorities has been strengthened and made into a statutory duty to ensure that developers clean up their site prior to redevelopment. This ensures that the land is suitable for its intended use, and risks to the environment from contamination have been minimised.
2) The Contaminated Land Regime: (Environmental Protection Act 1990 Part 2A)
In April 2000, Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 introduced a new regulatory regime for the identification and remediation of contaminated land, and placed a duty on Local Authorities to inspect their areas for any potentially contaminated land.
East Staffordshire Borough Council has produced a written Strategy that sets out how we intend to identify and inspect contaminated land within the Borough. The Strategy is not intended to produce a list of contaminated sites, but to establish procedures that include:
• Channels of liaison and communication, both internally within the Council and with external organisations.
• The collection of information, methodologies for site inspection and the storage and management of information.
The UK government has adopted a ‘Suitable for Use’ approach to deal with contaminated land. Only unacceptable threats to health, safety or the environment, taking account of the current or intended use of the site, will be dealt with and not total clean up of every site.
Read ESBC's Contaminated Land Strategy here
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