Contaminated Land &
Water Working Group
Mission Statement
To provide a uniform approach to land and water issues for all Local
Authorities in the Manchester area. Advice is provided to the Land and
Water Working Group who consist of a technical group of officers from
member authorities, on the strategic, public health and environmental
aspects of Land and Water management.
To work together to encourage, develop and deliver efficient effective
and high quality advice on Land and Water issues for the community of
Greater Manchester within the context of statutory guidance.
History
The group was established in the late 1980s to deal with the then
emerging problem of contaminated land and to consider its effect on health
and the urban environment. In the mid 1990s development was restrained by
a lack of progress nationally on new legislation. However, at that time
the Group was already involved in joint action to respond to the public
health problems surrounding 'brownfield' sites in Greater Manchester.
The introduction of the contaminated land regime by means of Part IIA
of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which came into force on April
1st 2000, has for the first time given local authorities powers to deal
with statutorily defined contaminated land. To find out more how MAPAC
members are Dealing with Contaminated Land in the Manchester Area, click
here.
Current Work Areas
Coordinated action by member authorities is founded upon the need for a
cost effective and consistent approach across the Greater Manchester area
and currently involves:
- Regular liaison meetings between officers to provide a forum for the
exchange of information, experience and ideas for ongoing joint action
on land and water issues. The group has a representative from the
Environment Agency who regularly attends meetings. This is an
important contact point on general as well as specific issues.
- In-house workshops to develop a high level of up to date, technical
expertise for officers engaged on contaminated land work. Subject
areas have included.
- Geophysical ground investigations
- Contaminated land insurance with leading risk
management company
- Contaminated land law with local law firm
- Work in partnership with the Greater Manchester
Geological Unit
The specialised responsibilities of related organisations where they
contribute to the work of a local authority's contaminated land regime,
including the Environment Agency, Lattice properties (formerly British
Gas) and Greater Manchester Fire Service.
- Joint purchasing agreements for specialised data such as
Geographical Information Systems databases as part of the co-ordinated
approach across MAPAC.
- Benchmarking and development of Best Practice procedures to assist
local authorities in providing high quality, consistent services
within their own local areas, an example being the development of an
improved system for dealing with environmental search enquiries.
- Development of technical notes and guidance for specific aspects of
the contaminated land regime including prioritisation of potentially
contaminated land sites and internal generic planning guidance
documents.
- Publicising the work and achievements of the local authorities
within MAPAC in order to provide the appropriate information to
organisations and people who have an interest in, or are tackling
contaminated land problems.
Future Work Areas
MAPAC local authorities have now consulted on, and published their
contaminated land strategies. In addition to the ongoing commitment to the
development of best practice across member authorities, the new challenge
is to implement the contaminated land strategies and contribute to the
regeneration of our urban areas in conjunction with related Council
functions such as Planning.
The Group intends to support this role by:
- Producing best practice documents:
- Landfill gas monitoring
- Guidance for development on gas contaminated land
- Responses to environmental search requests including
access to environmental information
- General contaminated land planning principles
- A landfill gas workshop followed by agreement on criteria for best
practice for development on gas contaminated land and landfill gas
monitoring.
- A review of draft planning technical guidance note and agreement on
general principles for dealing with contaminated land planning issues.
- A review of the progress of inspection strategies.
- Addressing the training needs for the assessment of the variability
and suitability of common laboratory analytical techniques in relation
to contaminated soils.
- Developing partnerships with other organisations that may be able to
contribute to our objectives, including the North West Development
Agency.
- Developing comparative best value indicators.
- Standardisation of site prioritisation criteria ensuring consistency
regarding interpretation and classification.
- Exploring opportunities for the development of interdepartmental
Geographical Information System information exchange.
- Exploring cross-boundary contaminated land issues including
collation and assessment of landfill data.
- Exploring conveyance and landfill search problems.
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