Environmental Risk Areas

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4.1.34 The Council has responsibilities and powers through the planning system to minimise the potential exposure of new development proposals to certain environmental and development risks.

4.1.35 The Council generally promotes the re-use of brownfield land within the urban area (see Urban Capacity policy), particularly where it is vacant or derelict, in preference to greenfield or green belt land.

4.1.36 The presence of development risks should not prevent development, providing that appropriate caution and remediation measures are taken. In fact it is highly desirable for health and safety reasons that such risks are removed, and the Council encourages development where the use and remediation are appropriate.

4.1.37 The role of the planning system with regards to contaminated land is explained in Planning Advice Note (PAN) 33, and the terms of it are not repeated here, but it is clearly in the interests of sustainable development to ensure that past contamination is dealt with and that new contamination is prevented.

4.1.38 The Council following consultation with other agencies, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), has prepared a Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy and is committed to identifying and maintaining a register of contaminated (or potentially contaminated) land, and where appropriate to ensuring its remediation.

4.1.39 The objective of the Strategy is to ensure that any historical contamination that may pose a threat to health, safety or the environment is satisfactorily and safely dealt with. This applies to contamination within a site and also that which may escape from a site into the air or surrounding water or land.

4.1.40 Remediation should be in accordance with the relevant technical standards and codes of practice to ensure that the site is suitable for its proposed use.

4.1.41 Current contaminated land legislation provides that the responsibility for the remediation of contaminated land (including costs) lies firstly with the persons who caused (or knowingly permitted) the pollution (i.e. the ‘polluter pays’ principle) or secondly with the current land owner/occupier.

4.1.42 Some potential risk sites are proposed within this plan either for environmental improvement or for development. It must be noted however that the allocation of a site in this plan for a particular land use does not in itself approve the suitability of the site for that purpose and any proposal will need to be assessed against policy DQ11 below. The developer is responsible for investigating these risks.

DQ 10 Contaminated Land Strategy

The Council, in consultation with its partners, has prepared a Contaminated Land Inspection Strategy, and will prepare a register of contaminated land. The Council is committed to its obligations to ensure that all contaminated land will be identified and that an appropriate level of remediation takes place.

DQ 11 Environment Risk Areas

Some parts of the plan area are affected by certain development risks including:

a. methane or associated gases,

b. contaminated (or potentially contaminated) land, and

c. unstable (or potentially unstable) ground.

Where any of the above are known to occur (or are thought to occur), applicants seeking to develop such sites will require to submit to the Council supporting technical information to show that:

a. a risk assessment has been undertaken,

b. the site is suitable for the proposed development,

c. where necessary, appropriate remedial measures are included in the development proposal, so that the site is fit for its proposed use,

d. no unacceptable risk will occur within the site or to surrounding land/environments, during or after development, and

e. if appropriate, a monitoring strategy has been formulated.

The Council will require conclusive and verifiable evidence that no risk to public safety or the environment will occur in order to protect public safety, the Council will adopt the ‘precautionary principle’ in dealing with planning applications in such cases. Where doubt arises, the Council will resist development.

Where proposals lie close to the above risk areas, in particular within 250m of a contaminated or gassing site, identified in the Council’s contaminated land register the applicants may also require to provide such evidence of the safety of the proposal.