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Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has cut over 1,300 pages from the UK’s National Planning Policy Framework.
This is an opportunity for researchers who
are interested in the physical and social
aspects of how the environment affects
community health.
“People have looked at the association between
green space and health, but not specifically
brownfield and previously used land and wellbeing”, says Dr Steve Robertson, a Senior
Researcher on ROBUST who is working on soil
remediation techniques as well as researching
the social impacts of brownfield land on
community health. “Land is clearly important
to communities. If it is seen as waste or
derelict land and is sitting in the middle of your
community it tells people ‘we’re not building
new supermarkets or housing estates because
no one wants to build here’”, he said.
Many communities throughout the world that
live in rural, urban or suburban environments
live with what is left from an industrial age
that has been passed on to other parts of the
world that were once untouched by modern
technological development. In the UK, laws
governing the use of brownfield and other kinds
of land for development by communities are
beginning to change. It may mean that local
authorities will be able to have more control
over the land around them that could lead to
some improvements in regenerating land and
community health, but in some cases seems
more likely to hand over more power to land
developers to influence councils.
According to the new Localism Bill recently
passed in the House of Commons, UK government
will allow communities to approve development
without requiring normal planning permissions.
This could mean that communities can get to
work right away in regenerating and developing
brownfield land without national or even local
government interference, however, as the
law currently stands it seems that any land
developments could be approved, making it
quite controversial. The National Trust criticised
the bill for not prioritising brownfield land for
development as government has done in the
past. They argue that the UK’s greenbelt could
be in danger because developers may prefer to
develop land that has not been previously used
or that has contamination.
The UK government has cut over 1,300
pages of planning guidance from the National
Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) reducing it
to a mere 52 pages. Conservation groups and
communities alike are concerned that vast areas
of the UK’s greenbelt and rural landscape will
be invaded by housing developments. Kirklees
Council in Yorkshire, for example, plans to
build a total of 25,400 new homes by 2028,
with 2,500 of them to be built on greenbelt.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England and
the Kirklees Environment Partnership withdrew
from the group developing the proposals
accusing the council of ‘lack of transparency’.
Since the new NPPF has become law in April,
the fear is that developers will bribe councils
into developing land leaving little room for
community influence to decide where and how
housing should be implemented. But Planning
Minister Greg Clark argues that Clause 167 of
the Localism Bill requires that