News Contaminated Land

National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination open for consultation

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The proposed National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination (QMLC) is a scheme that has been developed by the Land Forum to provide visible identification of documents that have been checked for quality by a Suitably Qualified and experienced Person.  It is hoped that this will provide increased confidence and improved quality of submissions made under regulatory regimes, particularly planning applications, related to previously used land.

 

Through endorsement by the Land Forum and through joint ownership by Land Forum members the scheme can be considered to have support and acceptance across the community and to be nationally recognised.

 

The initiative is supported in principle by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. A positive response has also been received from individual devolved administrations. The scheme is intended to be launched in autumn 2015.

 

The consultation is being led by the Land Forum to gather stakeholders’ feedback on the proposed National Quality Mark Scheme for Land affected by Contamination (QMLC) (www.claire.co.uk/qmlc) will run to May 15th 2015To participate in the consultation please follow the link:

www.claire.co.uk/qmlc-consultation

Report Contaminated Land

Contaminated Land Working Group Report

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Neil Parry, Chairman, CLG writes:

Our last meeting was held on 10th January 2015, 17 members attended. Below is a summary of ongoing activities.

Environment Agency (EA)

Further to the meeting with Bob MacIntyre (EA Hazardous Waste) a further (or extended) Working Group meeting is proposed once the Waste classification and assessment Technical Guidance WM3 has been published. Agreement from the Main Committee was required (Ann-Marie to forward additional room costs).

Sampling

A separate working group has been set up to look into sampling protocols for contaminated soil and waste. We have been in contact with Murray Lark from the BGS and he has agreed to contribute to the sub group.

NHBC

Karen Thornton reported on the statistics for NHBC and research projects on low energy, SUDS, soil stabilisation. A new Basement Construction chapter 5.4. A full review of standards is due to take place up to April this year.

Land Forum

Chaired by Seamus Lefroy-Brooks. Work being carried out on QMLC Scheme for competence.

C4SL

SAGTA held a meeting at the beginning of February. It was agreed that Karen Thornton would feed back information from the meeting to the CLWG.

Asbestos

A panel discussion on asbestos will be held on Members’ day.

UKWIR

Further to the AGS Position Statement on the UKWIR guidance (guidance for the selection of water pipes in contaminated land) further monitoring of the general water company requirements will be carried out.

SiLC

Roger Clarke reported that there has been a drive for more assessors as the numbers in SiLC increase.

BS8485

Code of practice for the characterization and remediation from ground gas in affected developments. Some progress on the new draft reported by CLWG members involved.