External Documents
Communicating understanding of contaminated land risks.
This SNIFFER risk communication booklet is designed to be a convenient and easy-to-use reference that complements the Communicating Understanding of Contaminated Land Risks revised guidance (SNIFFER, 2010). It provides a comprehensive distillation of the ideas and tips contained within the guidance in a format that is more conducive to quick referencing.
This booklet is not a substitute for the guidance, which contains very detailed discussion on the multitude of complexities inherent in communicating about land contamination and its associated risks. These complexities must be considered and addressed in order to communicate successfully. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you read the guidance after reading this booklet, and then use this booklet as a reminder of, and quick reference to key concepts, points and tips.
This is a report from the East Land Quality Forum (ELQF) of their Inaugural meeting held on 30th September 2010 at The John Clare Theatre in Peterborough.
The meeting was generously sponsored by Royal Haskoning and was very well attended to the extent that unfortunately places where limited due to the capacity of the venue. The theme of the meeting was “Brownfield Regeneration in Challenging Times”.
The day had prominent speakers including Richard Boyle (Homes and Communities Agency), George Bennett (East of England Development Agency), Matt Whitehead (Environment Agency), Ian Heasman (Taylor Wimpey), Paul Nathanail (Land Quality Management), Roland Bolton/Katrina Hulse (DLP Planning) and Andrew Wiseman (Stephenson Harwood). Issues explored included aspects of governmental and regulatory changes, the localism agenda, future potential funding cuts, climate change, planning and sustainability, specific issues pertaining to the East of England and drivers for new Local Enterprise Partnerships and the overarching need to deliver land quality improvements while maintaining effective resource management.
Feedback from the event was extremely positive and the next meeting is going to be in March with the theme; ‘Remediation – the good, the bad and the ugly’. The event will be advertised through CL:AIRE and we will work jointly to promote sustainable remediation.
Background
The East Land Quality Forum (ELQF) was established in March 2010 as a dedicated voluntary body offering free seminars for land quality practitioners within the East of England. The aim of the Forum is to allow all those with a professional interest in land quality in the East of England to come together with four main aims:
E Encouraging dialogue;
L Learning and dissemination of good practice and knowledge;
Q Quality partnerships are developed; and
F Future innovation promoted.
The forum has proved incredibly successful from the outset, with over 230 members from over 126 organisations, including consultants, regulators, industry and academia.
Opportunity to provide your views to the European Commission on the potential benefits of an EU Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) scheme for monitoring and remediation technologies
GHK Consulting has been contracted by DG Environment, European Commission, to assess the market potential and demand from technology developers for an EU ETV scheme across various environmental markets. The study outcomes will help to focus the scheme on those environmental product applications that would benefit most from such a performance verification process.
GHK is currently conducting a pan-EU consultation and is interested in hearing the views of any company developing monitoring and remediation technologies who might be interested in participating in the EU ETV, particularly those that currently find it challenging to prove the performance of their new products. Companies are invited to complete a short questionnaire (link below) which will assist GHK in better understanding barriers to performance verification, the nature of product commercialisation as well as the perceived benefits from developers of using the ETV scheme.
If you would prefer to contact GHK directly, please contact Jonathan Lonsdale on 020 7611 1128 or jonathan.lonsdale@ghkint.com.
GHK hopes that firms will be able to respond by 8 April 2011. Those firms unable to meet this deadline who would still like to respond should contact GHK directly.
CL:AIRE is pleased to announce the publication of the Defra commissioned “Contaminated Land Remediation Report”, compiled and authored by CL:AIRE. The aims of this research were to summarise the current understanding and utilisation of different contaminated land remediation techniques, to identify current and likely future factors influencing their selection and to set out the relative economic, environmental and social costs and benefits (i.e. the sustainability) of each technique.
The sustainability impact assessment section of the report develops further the principles of the Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF-UK), demonstrating how thorough qualitative sustainability assessments for remediation technology selection can be undertaken and developed. This will benefit Defra which is keen to encourage “smarter” remediation solutions to be used in practice. Remediation techniques have evolved significantly over recent years, and the aim is to help industry to identify all the available options and to avoid resorting to a default remediation solution which may have less well determined economic, environmental or social impacts.
The objectives of the research were to:
- Provide an overview of the understanding of remediation techniques
- Assess the status of the use of remediation techniques in England and Wales
- Conduct an environmental and social impact assessment of remediation techniques
- Conduct a cost assessment of remediation techniques
The research included input from technology providers and environmental consultants.
Dr Richard Boyle, Brownfield Technical Consultant at the Homes and Communities Agency said “A thorough site investigation and detailed remedial options appraisal can minimise uncertainty, expense and technical difficulty when dealing with contaminated land. This research provides an essential update for all practitioners, whether they are consultants, contractors, planners or land owners, to summarise the current understanding and utilisation of different remediation techniques. An extremely welcome element is the inclusion of current and likely future factors influencing their selection, which includes the relative sustainability implications of the techniques covering likely economic, environmental and social costs and benefits that are becoming so important.”
For any enquiries please contact Rob Sweeney, Senior Project Manager at CL:AIRE.
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