Two cheers (or maybe one and a half) are in order on the contaminated land front. At the end of November a standard Land Condition Record was formally launched which should go a long way towards establishing consistency in the presentation, scope and quality of the information about sites. This way purchasers should have a much clearer appreciation of what they are buying.
Currently information pops up in as many formats as sites, creating no end of work for environmental consultants as they attempt to make sense of it on behalf of prospective developers. Assessing risk is a can of worms at the best of times. This initiative should make things a deal more manageable. It's long overdue.
Another welcome sign of the times surfaced last month when Chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-Budget statement contained the news that ministers plan to introduce an accelerated payable tax credit for the costs incurred in cleaning up contaminated sites. This will be worth £85m in tax relief.
But negotiating the overlapping and conflicting regulations and legislation affecting redevelopment on contaminated land remains a problem of Herculean proportions and Byzantine complexity.
The point has been well made by Phil Kirby, a member of the Urban Task Force. His day job is general manager of Lattice Property, the new name for that part of the former British Gas which owns hundreds of contaminated sites, many of which were once gasworks.
Kirby says: "A contaminated site can have as many as seven different regulators. Part11A of the Contaminated Land Act overlaps with the Waste Management Regulations, EU Groundwater Directive, UK groundwater regulations and health and safety regulations."
But things have become worse. Kirby again: "Recently the Control of Major Accidents and Hazards regulations were quoted on one site. Add to this planning regulations, the European Habitats Directive, environmental impact assessments, local authorities with highly variable skills and experience as principal regulators, and divisions within government watchdog the Environment Agency and you begin to understand why a great many developers steer clear."
His point is that a single regeneration licence would make sense. Interested parties and government officials agreed back in April that this was achievable without recourse to primary legislation. We're talking about administrative clean-up here. Sadly, since the spring, the trail has gone cold. The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions has been mute. More's the pity.
Apres le deluge...
It was only to be expected in the circumstances, I guess. MPs have been trying to make political capital out of the recent floods. The Commons has been awash with finger pointing as our elected representatives and members of the Government argue over who is to blame for the profligate use of the flood plain for housing development.
Ashford's Tory MP Damian Green stood up in the chamber to suggest that, as a result of ministerial promises of action, "it was reasonable for people in the South East to think that part of that action would be to cut the number of houses that the Government want to build in the wrong places in the South East".
Green demanded, but did not get, an assurance from planning minister Nick Raynsford on this. He, not unreasonably, pointed out that Government had been consulting on new guidance for months. "We expect developments to avoid flood plains when properties could be at risk" said the minister before accusing Green's party of "silly sloganising".
The bald fact is that the UK planning system is not best suited to the sort of command and control measures which many feel present circumstances demand.
The Environment Agency has been advising planning authorities until it is blue in the face about the problems of concreting over the flood plain. But at the end of the day it is just that, advice. It is not administrative dictat.
In the wider context of how we are managing our response to the threat of wholesale climate change there is, I'm afraid, little sign and less evidence that the planning system is delivering the goods. Lots of fine words, dollops of good intentions, but precious little action on the ground as far as helping reducing the need to travel, for instance.
The very fact that the planning system, for whatever reason, has patently failed to address the flood plain issue only serves to underline the futility of Government reliance on it to have a significant impact on the biggest environmental issue of our time. The administration shows no sign of learning that fact of life, though.
Source
Building Homes
