On 12 March 2020 the Government published a policy document entitled ‘Planning for the Future‘ which sets out its plans for the delivery of housing and further reforms to the planning system.

The title of a very informative article in the September/October AGS Magazine. If you want to take advantage of the opportunities or avoid the risks of contaminated land then this article is worth a read.

It helps to underline the fact that for a successful project contaminated land has to be addressed as an integrated part of the project and not an after thought. The latter approach often leads to delays and additional costs.

Public Health England have produced guidance on managing risk on potentially contaminated residential land. This document is intended for local authorities to be used for the management of contaminated land issues, however it includes common sense advice of use to a home owner or allotment user who may have concerns about the possibility of above normal levels of contaminants in soil.

Do you need to undertake vapour or land gas monitoring in a confined space or need to keep disruption to a minimum then we may have the answer. We are now able to undertake land gas and vapour monitoring using Vapor PinsTM.

The system is relatively quick and easy to install and is a very cost effective method of vapour and land gas monitoring. In difficult to access basements it may be the only practicable option, it could literally be installed in a broom cupboard.

In Australia a joint parliamentary committee has been investigating contamination from toxic firefighting chemicals which leached off defence bases and into soil and waterways.

The Environment Agency (EA) has withdrawn the Soil Guideline Value (SGV) for mercury and the associated supporting reports.  This follows discussions with Public Health England (PHE) about a revised opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). EFSA recommended an oral TDI for both these forms of mercury that are lower than the oral HCV used in the derivation of the SGV.

A recent survey by Development+Infrastructure identified contaminated land as the environmental factor most likely to cause upset to a housing development, followed by flood risk, more details here.

Once again it shows that the importance of taking advice at the earliest stage cannot be over stated. As my grandmother used to say, forewarned is forearmed.

We are proud sponsors of this resource, which is designed to be the place the industry goes to find directions to the current documents and guidance.

Councils in England and Wales are to get new tools to speed up the development of derelict and underused land for new homes, Housing and Planning Minister Gavin Barwell has advised.

Brownfield registers were piloted in 2016, when 73 local planning authorities from across the country pioneered the measures.

All local authorities in England and Wales will now have to produce and maintain up to date, publicly available registers of brownfield sites available for housing in order to help house builders to quickly identify suitable brownfield sites.