Other Environmental Planning

Other Environmental Planning services
we provide include:

• initial appraisals of environmental constraints to potential development sites,
  e.g. comparative analysis of competing Local Development Framework allocation sites
• identifying opportunities for the enhancement of the environment and benefits to local communities in support of development projects
• advising on specialist consultants and engaging their expertise
• using environmental and legal expertise to negotiate Section 106 agreements, and
  advising on the validity and implementation of environmental planning conditions attached to planning consents
• brownfield re-development and other urban regeneration initiatives
• expertise on rural planning matters which complements the mainstream planning skills of the Bell Cornwell Partnership
• specialist in community woodlands and forests as a physical framework for recreation and other environmental benefits
• specialist in soils and related environmental science.

Recent Developments in Environmental Assessment

As a result of the wider scope of environmental regulation, planning authorities require Environmental Impact Assessment for more and more developments, and decisions are subject to successful legal challenges by third party influences.

Bell Cornwell Environmental has the environmental and legal expertise to provide a specialised service to help developers and planning authorities to respond in a cost-effective way to the demand for ever higher environmental standards. The staged approach is to:

• Carry out initial environmental appraisals of potential development sites (individual or competing Local Development Framework allocation sites) based on:
  • the characteristics of the proposed development;
  • the nature of the site;
  • the EIA/SEA Regulations and PPS advice;
  • a sustainability checklist;
  • legal test cases.
    
• Provide a screening opinion on the need for a full Environmental Impact Assessment, or recommending a more limited environmental study targeted on one or more specialist subjects.
  
• Providing a scoping opinion on the specialist subjects that should be covered within an Environmental Impacts Assessment, or as a more limited environmental study.
  
• Clearly, there are advantages to the scoping out of specialist subjects at the earliest opportunity.
  
• In carrying out this appraisal, Bell Cornwell Environmental will call upon the expertise of specialists as necessary. 

Developers are expected to use their Environmental Impact Assessments to demonstrate why they have selected their site for the location of the proposed development. Thus it is necessary to address alternatives. Furthermore, in some circumstances the cumulative impacts assessment of developments is required. There is little formal guidance to show how these assessments should be carried out, but Bell Cornwell Environmental has developed practical scientific methodologies to meet this requirement.