Entec
Bulletin
Brownfield Action
The first Brownfield Land Action Plan (BLAP) for the east of England has been completed by Entec for the East of England Development Agency. The primary objective was to better understand, at a local level, the range of actions and interventions required to ensure the best re-use of previously developed land. This in turn will help to deliver regional strategic objectives in the chosen study areas.
The project is the first in what is likely to be a roll-out of BLAPs in housing land supply priority areas in the east of England and more widely. This is part of English Partnerships' and the Regional Development Agencies' commitment to delivering both the National Brownfield Strategy and more housing through the Sustainable Communities Plan.
The area of search concentrated on the towns of Harlow, Peterborough and Stevenage assembling information from the agreed sources on some 150 sites. Stakeholder engagement involved workshops with local authority planning and regeneration officers, regional agencies and a series of one-to-one discussions with some of the main house-builders active in the region.
The GIS database specially developed by Entec for this study will allow sites to be evaluated and brought forward for development within a phased programme up to 2016. It is a working tool, available for use by the client to monitor uptake and update with new site data.
With the study being the first such exercise in the region it was necessary to consider wider best practice issues to inform subsequent BLAP preparation.
It therefore built upon a pilot
conducted in the north west, incorporating the lessons learnt into a revised
methodology. Crucially, the study
considered sustainability factors, alongside the more familiar market supply
and
site constraint factors, in order to fully reflect the Sustainable
Communities Plan objectives.
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