Hazard Risk Resilience Magazine Volume 1 Issue1 | Page 23

23 Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has cut over 1,300 pages from the UK’s National Planning Policy Framework. This is an opportunity for researchers who are interested in the physical and social aspects of how the environment affects community health. “People have looked at the association between green space and health, but not specifically brownfield and previously used land and wellbeing”, says Dr Steve Robertson, a Senior Researcher on ROBUST who is working on soil remediation techniques as well as researching the social impacts of brownfield land on community health. “Land is clearly important to communities. If it is seen as waste or derelict land and is sitting in the middle of your community it tells people ‘we’re not building new supermarkets or housing estates because no one wants to build here’”, he said. Many communities throughout the world that live in rural, urban or suburban environments live with what is left from an industrial age that has been passed on to other parts of the world that were once untouched by modern technological development. In the UK, laws governing the use of brownfield and other kinds of land for development by communities are beginning to change. It may mean that local authorities will be able to have more control over the land around them that could lead to some improvements in regenerating land and community health, but in some cases seems more likely to hand over more power to land developers to influence councils. According to the new Localism Bill recently passed in the House of Commons, UK government will allow communities to approve development without requiring normal planning permissions. This could mean that communities can get to work right away in regenerating and developing brownfield land without national or even local government interference, however, as the law currently stands it seems that any land developments could be approved, making it quite controversial. The National Trust criticised the bill for not prioritising brownfield land for development as government has done in the past. They argue that the UK’s greenbelt could be in danger because developers may prefer to develop land that has not been previously used or that has contamination. The UK government has cut over 1,300 pages of planning guidance from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) reducing it to a mere 52 pages. Conservation groups and communities alike are concerned that vast areas of the UK’s greenbelt and rural landscape will be invaded by housing developments. Kirklees Council in Yorkshire, for example, plans to build a total of 25,400 new homes by 2028, with 2,500 of them to be built on greenbelt. The Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Kirklees Environment Partnership withdrew from the group developing the proposals accusing the council of ‘lack of transparency’. Since the new NPPF has become law in April, the fear is that developers will bribe councils into developing land leaving little room for community influence to decide where and how housing should be implemented. But Planning Minister Greg Clark argues that Clause 167 of the Localism Bill requires that