SAVE Britain's Heritage - case law in practice
Natalie Williams from URS describes one of the first environmental impact assessments for a demolition project following the SAVE Britain's Heritage decision.
In March 2011 SAVE Britain’s Heritage secured a landmark judgment against the secretary of state for communities and local government which introduced new controls over the demolition of buildings and structures under UK planning law.
The case involved a decision by Lancaster City Council authorising the destruction of the historic Mitchell's Brewery building. Previously, demolition fell outside the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive as it did not constitute a project and therefore did not require planning permission or an EIA – as confirmed in the Town and Country Planning (Demolition-Description of Buildings) Direction 1995.
The Court of Appeal ruled that demolition is a project under the EIA Directive, meaning that an EIA, and a planning application, is now required for demolition projects with potentially significant environmental impacts (see “Saving Britain’s heritage”).
In one of the first projects to be affected by this case law, URS was commissioned to undertake the EIA for the demolition of three cooling towers and a chimney at the former Richborough Power Station in Kent. These structures are more than 100 metres in height and have been part of the landscape since being built in the late 1950s and have been left derelict since 1996.
Extensive demolition of the power station structures on site had taken place prior to 2000 and more recently in 2007 and 2011. Demolition Contractors were planning the demolition of the remaining 16 smaller buildings and the cooling towers and chimney when the SAVE case law was published, putting the demolition works at risk of requiring an EIA and temporarily halting work.
Following legal advice and formal discussions with the local planning authority, Thanet District Council (TDC), it was concluded that the demolition of the 16 smaller buildings could progress under prior approval (permitted by Schedule 2 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995), which simply required an application to the council detailing the method of demolition and restoration works. These buildings have since been demolished.
In contrast, an official EIA screening opinion from TDC decided that the demolition of the three cooling towers and chimney constituted an EIA development, due to the footprint of the site exceeding 0.5 hectares and the site’s proximity to a number of sensitive receptors, including: the River Stour; the Sandwich and Hacklinge Marshes site of special scientific interest; the Ash Level and South Richborough local wildlife site and the Sandwich Bay special area of conservation.
Interestingly, despite the SAVE case having been intended to protect Britain’s heritage, the formal screening opinion dismissed the structures as having any special historical or heritage value, and this was not one of the reasons for an EIA being required.
URS project managed the EIA, from the screening and scoping stage right through to the production of an environmental statement, including the production of a number of technical assessments, in particular: air quality and dust; noise and vibration; hydrology and contaminated land; ecology and waste.
Full planning permission was received on 18 January 2012, with the demolition event scheduled for later in 2012.
The project raised a number of interesting challenges, in particular how to describe the development and the level of information that should be provided in the application drawings. In summary, the project included the preparation of the three structures, the detonation event itself and the processing and stockpiling of the resulting demolition material onsite.
It was noticeable in the undertaking of the EIA that relatively little data exists on the environmental impacts associated with demolishing such large structures; for example, dust, noise and vibration data was predominantly based on research into the effects of blasting in mining operations.
It is expected that, through the EIA process, a library of information and data on similar demolition projects will gradually be developed, which will assist future projects.
While in this case the scale or nature of the proposed demolition was such as to give rise to a requirement for an EIA, the practical effect of the SAVE judgment on other, smaller projects remains less certain.
It is clear from this example however, that it cannot be assumed an EIA will not be required for demolition works simply because it has no special heritage features; similar to how the process is applied to other types of projects, the potential for the works to affect all environmental aspects should be considered during the EIA screening process.
This article was written as a contribution to the EIA Quality Mark’s commitment to improving EIA practice.
Natalie Williams is an EIA consultant at URS. For further information on this EIA or for other enquiries please contact Neil Titley on [email protected] or 01179 171 195.