UK Policy context
For several years the UK government has been promoting brownfield land as the development site of choice, most boldly with the 60% sustainability target for new housing to be built on brownfield sites by 2008 in Planning for the Communities of the Future (February 1998). This push to increase brownfield development was strongly reinforced with the sequential planning test once used to curb the spread of out of town shopping, now being applied to brownfield land as set out inPlanning Policy Guidance Note No.3: Housing, PPG3 Housing (2000)paragraphs 22 and 23 and Annex C.
Since the launch of these policy papers, specific brownfield policies and targets have become central to many urban related policies and guidance, the most notable of which is the Urban White Paper Our Towns and Cities: The Future Delivering an Urban Renaissance published on 16 November 2000 and updated 18 December 2001. In particular this white paper sets out specific issues on bringing brownfield land back into use which underpin most current government initiatives.
An old office building in Sheffield
(Photo courtesy ofNational Brownfields Project)
The starting point for these initiatives is information that shows:
- Most brownfield land and empty properties are in urban areas (4.30)
- Brownfield sites play a key role in the quality the urban environment and when undeveloped can dent confidence in the future of the area (4.31)
- Brownfield sites are a result of many and varied factors
The Urban White Paper identifies several key reasons for the reversion of previously developed land to an unused or neglected state. These include the dereliction of land and buildings in urban areas as a natural side effect of a 'dynamic society and economy'. A recent research report by GVA Grimley suggests that such social and economic shifts could offer opportunities for realising government targets for urban housing provision on brownfield land.
This research identifies an oversupply of nearly 2,000Ha of land from a projected decrease in the manufacturing sector over the next five years in addition to the 1,000Ha of industrial land that is already available for redevelopment.It is suggested that this land could provide sites for a large proportion of projected housing requirements in urban locations and offer ready-made infrastructure, transport and services with a wide range of land uses and facilities nearby. Although these sites could therefore offer ideal locations for mixed-use and sustainable urban development, there are concerns that converting these areas to residential use will reduce the potential for mixed use by locking sites into long-term residential use.
Photo courtesy of King's Environmental Services (KES), King's College London)
Other key forces for changes in the use of urban land outlined in the white paper address the specific legacy of an industrial past in the UK and include an obvious example of this in Government action to regenerate coalfields through Coalfields Task Forceset up in 1997, which set out a framework for action the following year. Specific funding organisations dealing with such brownfield development include:
- The Coalfields Regeneration Trust - set up in September 1999 with £50m from central government. The 'Community Chest' aspect of this trust funds projects up to £5,000 at a local level and has a searchable database of projects which have already been funded through the Regeneration Trust.
- The Coalfields Enterprise Fund - set up by English Partnerships and the Regional Development Agencies to promote public / private investment partnerships, received a further boost recently with a announcement of EC approval for government funding of £20M last month (January 2002). The Fund will provide start-up cash for new and developing small and medium size enterprises in the former coalfields areas, and if it is successful the second phase may be capable of increasing the fund by a further £50m
- Network Space - a joint venture between English Partnerships and the Langtree Group plc to build and manage workspace premises in up to 20 coalfield locations to meet the needs of new and expanding small businesses.
The Urban White Paperalso sets out measures to increase assistance and information necessary to promote viability of development on brownfield land. These include:
- identifying brownfield sitesThe National Land Use database was set up in 1998 and showed that 58,000 hectares of brownfield land was unused or potentially available for development in England at that time. The database was updated in 2001 and will be updated further on an annual basis thereafter. Information about individual sites is also being made available to private companies through English Partnerships' internet-based Strategic Sites Database.
- assembling large areas of brownfield land for redevelopmentWith many areas of brownfield land being large sites in multi-ownership, assembling sites that are commercially viable has in the past presented a major stumbling block to the redevelopment of such land. Compulsory purchase powers of local authorities and the role of Regional Development Authorities (RDAs) are both seen as ways forward in releasing viable packages of land for redevelopment. The recent emphasis on an increased role of RDA's (paragraph 4.42) and the change in CPO legislation put forward in the Planning Green Paper report on changing CPO provisions may help to ease the problems associated with multiple and fragemented ownership. They may also play a role in supporting a regional and holistic approach to development. The CPO legislation in particular will allow local authorities to compulsorily purchase land without having to produce detailed proposals for individual sites, thereby enabling them to assemble land that is earmarked for regeneration, but does not have a defined end use. These new powers represent a fast-track system that will allow local authorities the flexibility to assemble land for regeneration.
- reclaiming contaminated landGreater certainty about remediation work or reassurance that necessary action has been taken is key to creating the kind of confidence from investors that any development needs. This again has proved to be a substantial stumbling block in realising major developments on brownfield land. The new Standard Land Condition Record (LCR), to be launched shortly by a consortium of key players in the contaminated land industry, is an important step forward. The LCR will be a record of the physical and chemical nature of contamination and will include remediation information along with other information such as data from regulatory bodies and contractual information. The intention is that an LCR will become an established document in the management and sale of contaminated land.
In addition to increased certainty, the UK government has plans to increase investor's interest in projects involving contaminated land by accelerating the tax relief for cleaning it up. Currently companies can claim a 150 per cent tax credit (Section 4.10) for clean-up costs and these are repayable in certain circumstances.
Exemption from stamp duty for all property transactions in Britain's most disadvantaged communities was introduced in the 2001 budget and covered specific areas. This fiscal incentive aims to encourage the refurbishment and return to use of existing properties as well as new development.
Re-use and mixed use are also clearly supported in the fiscal incentives package introduced in 2001 with tax relief for residential conversions with an adjustment to the zero rate to provide relief for the sale of renovated houses that have been empty for ten years or more, and a tax relief for converting space over shops into flats for letting.
(Photo courtesy of Dunelm - Geotechnical & Environmental)
Recent revisions to basic policy guidance such as Planning Policy Guidance Note No. 3: Housing (PPG3)supports the push for brownfield development. In particular brownfield -friendly aspects of PPG3 include an increased role for urban capacity studies so that for example,
"In order to establish how much additional housing can be accommodated within urban area … all local planning authorities should undertake urban housing capacity studies" (PPG3, para 24).
and
"Planning authorities will also wish to draw on these studies in seeking to ensure that housing requirements are apportioned between local authorities in a way which maximises the use of previously-developed land and buildings and minimises greenfield land take." (PPG 3, para 26).
Urban design: a unique perspective
Brownfields sites offer unique opportunities in shaping the future of our urban areas, and urban design is well placed to facilitate the collaborative and holistic approach often required on such sites. With an intrinsically interdisciplinary approach and long-term view, urban designers are well placed to understand and bring together seemingly disparate interests. The use of urban design briefs can often improve confidence for various stakeholders such as land owners, local communities, infrastructure providers, funding organisations and policy makers
Derelict sites such as land at Station Hill, Bury St Edmunds. (Photo courtesy of St Edmundsbury Borough Council)
Housing and mixed use developments
The discrepancy between projected housing requirements and available sites puts brownfield development high on the agenda of house-builders. Many inner city and urban brownfield sites will however be more suited to mixed use development, and an urban design perspective will be more focused on developing urban sites in the context of the city or region rather than simply ensuring previously used land is built on OK. Most of the developable land in urban areas will be brownfield land, and so for urban designers the challenge will be to enable the development of vibrant and safe places on these most complicated of sites. It is therefore important that urban design can be seen to play a positive role in bringing about development on brownfield sites rather than an extra round of hoops a developer has to jump through.
The location of brownfield sites in our cities makes them pivotal in shaping our urban futures, and with the fiscal and policy incentives outlined above promoting brownfield development, such sites offer a huge opportunity for urban designers to inject life into neglected urban areas. In such strategic locations, brownfield siteswithall they entail can offer a route to realising many of the basic tenets of urban design.
Site in Leeds, near Royal Armouries (Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Steedman)
Land assembly
The challenge of land assembly is a familiar one for urban designers and is often key to successful brownfield development. This issue has been recognised by both central and local government and points to the usefulness of increased emphasis on regional overviews of development and policy. One example of this at the regional level is the announcement (Autumn 2001) from the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) of a brownfield land assembly trust aimed at assisting local councils to implement compulsory purchase orders (CPO's) on brownfield sites thereby making them into developable sites. Many small brownfield sites in less than wealthy urban areas offer potential under such a scheme to be assembled and put forward as viable development sites for affordable housing as well as other uses.
Urban design tools - key to brownfield development
Managing the process of collaboration and bridging differences between the disparate aims of groups of developers and landowners often falls within the remit of urban design and as with land assembly, this also plays a key role in brownfield development. While urban regeneration companies are increasingly taking the role of marketing the city or urban region as a whole, other approaches such as regeneration partnerships, urban capacity studies and development briefs are key areas of urban design which can facilitate brownfield development. Specific constraints on brownfield land such as the cost and logistics of infrastructure provision suggest that collaboration is the way forward for such sites The overview of an urban design approach, particularly in the engineering-based urban design sector which is at the cutting edge of movement systems (people, information, vehicles and services) offers an ideal way forward to these complex and far-reaching aspects of such sites.
The sustainable development agenda
Brownfield sites also offer scope for sustainable development with sites often located near to transport interchanges and within walking distance of town centre facilities and on sites large enough to generate demand for viable public transport. Arecent research project at the Oxford Centre for Sustainable Development has investigated the link between brownfield development and sustainable land-use which identifies stakeholders in the brownfield development process, and sets out a clear set of sustainability objectives and how to achieve them.
Additional Resources
Finding Funding
The Community Fund (previously the National Lottery Charities Board)
Finding brownfield land for development
Environment Agency offers a search facility which provides info on land/environmental quality of an area at the postal code level
English Partnerships' internet-based Strategic Sites Database
The National Land Use database
Bibliography
Manufacturing and residential land allocation - a deepening mismatch , 31 January 2002, available from GVA Grimley
Syms, P Releasing brownfields . Published bySheffield Hallam University for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2001. ISBN 1-84219-046-6.
Results of a 2 year research project to identify issues inhibiting the release of brownfield land for redevelopment, consider how to ensure that urban regeneration is not held up because of site assembly problems and to review ways of conveying information concerning risks.
Breaking Old Ground: BURA Guide to contaminated land and assessment . Published by the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) April 2001
ISBN 0-9540007-0-6, £10.00 + £2 p&p
Simplified information on the technical, planning, legal and regulatory issues that have to be confronted when faced with the prospect of cleaning-up land which is known or thought to be contaminated. The Guide is primarily designed for use by landowners, developers and professional advisors who have had relatively little experience in dealing with contaminated land.
Bardos, R Paul; Lewis, Anita J (eds) CLARINET and NICOLE special edition:the sustainable management and remediation of contaminated land, Land Contamination and Reclamation, Vol 9, No 1, Jan 2001, pp43-174 (whole issue)
Dair,C & Williams, K, Sustainable brownfield re-use - who should be involved and what should they be doing.Town and Country Planning Volume 70, No.6, June 2001 pp108-182.
Brownfield news and research on the web
National Brownfield Sites Project (NBSP)
In June 1998, Urban Mines Ltd set up the National Brownfield Sites Project (NBSP) in order to investigate brownfield sites and to address a range of related matters. These include definitions of brownfield sites, pilot surveys, location patterns and issues affecting the remediation and development of brownfield land.
CLAIRE (Contaminated Land: Applications in Real Environments) is an initiative set up in March 1999 as a public-private partnership to encourage the use of innovative and practical solutions to deal with contaminated sites. The network of CLAIRE demonstration sites will include examples of the range of industrially contaminated sites like coalfields, railway lands, manufactured gas plants, petro-chemical facilities and solvent sites.
CLARINET working group study on decision supports in 16 European Countries published October 2001
Network for Industrially Contaminated Land in Europe
NICOLE is an industry-led forum for the dissemination and exchange of scientific and technical information on industrially contaminated land with research, reports and news on contamination and remediation of brownfield land
CIRIA:a UK-based research association concerned with improving the performance of all involved in construction and the environment has list of research reports and findings on funding, client information and remediation
The National Governor's Association (NGA) for Best Practices is a US-based centre covering innovative practices in brownfield redevelopment at state-level in the USA which encourage urban cleanup and revitalization
The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) is an American-based independent non-profit organization that offers the technical expertise, services, and tools for brownfield redevelopment.
