Plans for the Northfleet Harbourside regeneration in Gravesend, Kent – including 3,500 homes on a 20ha Thames waterfront site – have been refused over concerns residents could face “chronic exposure to toxic lead”. The brownfield site, formerly used for heavy industry, was judged to pose an unacceptable long-term health risk despite proposed remediation measures. The decision signals tougher scrutiny of contamination risk assessments and remediation strategies on large riverside regeneration schemes with legacy industrial pollution.

Dice Environmental has expanded its ecology services under new associate ecologist Rob Halcrow to support clients with Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) planning requirements. The offer now covers Preliminary Ecological Appraisals, UKHab habitat surveys, BNG assessments with statutory metric calculations, protected species and bat surveys, Ecological Impact Assessments, and Ecological Clerk of Works (ECoW) support. Early-stage ecological input is positioned to help developers, architects and planning consultants identify constraints sooner, commission proportionate surveys and reduce programme and planning consent risk on infrastructure schemes.

Keltbray has completed environmental remediation of the 9ha Waterfront East Park brownfield site on Chappell Drive in Doncaster, preparing it for future mixed-use development. Works are understood to have focused on treatment and removal of contaminated made ground typical of former industrial riverfront land, along with re-engineering of soils to achieve development-ready bearing capacities and platform levels. The scheme provides a cleaned and remediated development platform in a constrained urban setting, reducing geotechnical and contamination risk for follow-on infrastructure and building foundations.