Plans have been green-lit for up to 100 homes on green belt at the Building Research Establishment’s site in Garston, Hertfordshire
held in April to consider an appeal against the decision by St Albans City & District Council to refuse planning permission for the demolition of existing buildings and construction of up to 100 new dwellings, associated facilities and access at the BRE site. The inspector had recommended that the appeal be allowed and planning permission granted, subject to conditions.
(3 CONCLUSION REACHED Noting that the proposals were for the redevelopment of a previously developed site, the secretary of state agreed with Mahoney that her conclusion – that the appeal proposal was not inappropriate development nor harmful to the green belt – was reasonable. He further agreed with the inspector that there was no reason to question the position, agreed by the main parties, that the council did not have a fiveyear supply of housing land and that there was an acute need for housing (including affordable housing) within the district. The development would contribute to unmet housing need within the district as well as supplying much-needed affordable housing; both of these factors “should weigh positively in the balance of the decision”. Environmentally, the secretary of state suggested that it should be possible
“to achieve an acceptable design of development which would not materially harm the character and appearance of the surrounding area”.
APPEAL REFERENCE: APP/ B1930/A/13/2207696
MINERAL EXTRACTION
Mineral extraction and wetland scheme is denied (1 SUMMARY A development that would have involved mineral extraction, processing and the importation of sand, gravel and reclamation materials from Denham Park Farm – with restoration to agriculture and the development of a small wetland area – has been dismissed. (2 CASE DETAILS Key to this case was the potential effect of the proposed development on groundwater quality/ quantity and whether the proposed development would be inappropriate development in the green belt. The proposed development would have involved excavation of sand and gravel from the site and the stripping and I M AG E S | PE T E R W H I T E / B R E / I STO C K
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storing of soils and other associated operations and works. Excavated material would have been processed, requiring the erection of plant and the provision of silt lagoons, fuel storage and other ancillary buildings and equipment. The plant would also be used to process sand and gravel excavated from the nearby Denham Park Farm (DPF) quarry, located in Buckinghamshire. In order to restore the land to its former level, the void excavated on the site would have been filled with a claytype material excavated for the purpose from DPF, and re-covered by the stored soils. (New access to the A412 would have been constructed to allow for exporting of the processed material.) (3 CONCLUSION REACHED The filling of the void proved to be one of the key issues. In dispute was the question as to whether the fill material should be considered ‘waste’ in the context of applying the planning and environmental protection regimes – and thus whether the infilling should be regarded as a waste disposal operation. In his summary, inspector
Jonathan King said that the Environmental Agency took the view that the material must be considered as waste and the operation as waste disposal – based on definitions contained within the European Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC (WFD) and on judgments in the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). He was satisfied that the proposed infilling of the void should be regarded as ‘landfill’, consistent with the inclusion of landfill in the WFD definition of ‘disposal operations’ as an example of ‘deposit into or on to land’. The inspector further held that the appellant had also not provided sufficient information to demonstrate that harm to groundwater would not be caused, while in terms of the green belt “other considerations do not outweigh the potential harm to the green belt by reason of inappropriateness, and any other harm. Very special circumstances do not exist”.
APPEAL REFERENCE: APP/ M1900/A/14/2218970
Proposals for mineral extraction works on wetlands in Hertfordshire have been blocked
NO VE MB ER 2 0 14 / THE PLA NNER
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27/10/2014 10:59