WPA Consultants Ltd
Shears Building, Stone Lane Industrial Estate, Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 1HD
Tel: 01202 973020
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Planning Regime
Development on land that may have contamination in the ground requires the developer to submit information on the nature of the contamination, the risks posed by its presence, and the methodology for remediating the site to ensure that it becomes fit for its new use. This may be a pre-application requirement or one dealt with by a planning condition. In some instances a Section 106 agreement can be implemented to attend to ongoing considerations such as the continued pollution of groundwater or the need to maintain groundgas protection measures.
Any site with the potential for contamination to be present that is being considered for development should be discussed, prior to making an application, with the Planning Officer and the Environmental Health Officer. A planning advice note has been prepared to assist in this regard.
Download Planning Advice Note (PDF 620Kb)
The consideration of contamination issues by the Local Planning Authority is a material concern described in the Government's Planning Policy Statement 23. This document covers contamination in Annexure 2 with an appendix providing examples of planning conditions that might be applied.
Download Planning Policy Statement 23, Annexe 2 (PDF 328Kb)
Consultants who provide services to developers must be conversant with current UK best practice for the safe development of contaminated land and the protocols used for assessing and managing the risks. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health have produced a document that lays out the ground rules for the the regulator. The District or Borough Environmental Health Officer is a statutory consultee in the development process when there are potential contaminated land issues. They will need to consider that development does not leave a future issue for the regulator under PartIIA of the EPA 1990. The Environment Agency will also need to be consulted where there are potential issues for groundwater contamination. The CIEH document can be downloaded from the PartIIA page.
