Conversion of Farm Buildings to Dwellings, Pucklechurch Road, Hinton, Chippenham

As part of the application the contaminated land team were consulted on the application and the potential for the site to pose a risk to human health, as the site had been used for agricultural purposes and the potential for this to have given rise to contamination the Environmental Protection Officer attached a contaminated land planning condition to the decision notice.

The first stage of discharging the contaminated land planning condition  was to prepare a Phase I desk study report, this assesses the potential for a site to be impacted by using a wide range of sources including Ordnance Survey maps, information provided by regulators (Environment Agency, local authority, Coal Authority, BGS etc.).

A review of the historical Ordnance Survey (O.S.) maps  revealed the site had been developed prior the first edition O.S. map (1881) with minor changes identified on the 1971 map. An in-filled pond was noted 10m to the north of the site which was in-filled circa 1971.

Street level imagery confirmed the site comprised of agricultural buildings.

The walkover survey revealed the site to be an active farm with a number of unbunded tanks in the courtyard area as well as the northern building being used as a workshop and plant storage.

As the qualitative risk assessment identified a number of identified a number of potential sources of contamination further works were proposed, as there was the potential for mobile contamination remediation in lieu of investigation was not considered to be suitable.

The desk study was submitted (DOC20/00118) with the memo (identified as Correspondence of the 27^th April 2020) confirming the desk study report had been accepted and the condition partly discharged subject to the site investigation being undertaken.