Contamination, Pollution and the Planning Process: A Practitioner’s Guide

Managing environmental issues in planning decisions is now an essential part of the process. The increasing pressure to develop brownfield sites and the publicity around the damage caused by air pollution are just two of the drivers for this growing area of planning practice.

The difficulty is that the law relating to these problems is disparate and overseen by different agencies with the answers hidden deep in often obscure guidance, regulations and case law. It is also developing rapidly as the provisions of the Environment Act 2021 begin to bite.

Tom Graham’s latest book aims to make some sense of this seemingly chaotic regime to provide developers, their advisors and the planning authorities with a coherent round up of the problems and how to address them by:

• setting out the main causes of concern created by for example landfill sites or abandoned mines
• providing practical insights on site and environmental impact assessments
• explaining the concepts such as air quality, toxicity and verification
• outlining how environmental law interacts with current planning law such as s106 of the Town and Country Planning Act
• offering drafting tips for any planning conditions

Case studies and a set of invaluable appendices reproducing key guidance in full help to bring it all together, making the book an essential source of reference for everyone involved in developing potentially contaminated sites.

Who would find this book useful?

• Planners
• Property developers
• Local authority planners
• Architects
• Legal advisors specialising in planning