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Land Reclamation in Wales

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Land Reclamation in Wales NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE REPORTBY THE COMPTROLLERAND AUDITORGENERAL Land Reclamationin Wales ORDEREDBY THEHOUSEOFCOMMONS TOBEPRINTED 16JUNE1994 LONDON:HMSO f8.15 NET 461 LAND RECLAMATION IN WALES This report has been prepared under Section 6 of the National Audit Act 1983 for presentation to the House of Commons in accordance with Section 9 of the Act. John Bourn National Audit Office Comptroller and Auditor General 14 June 1994 The Comptroller and Auditor General is the head of the National Audit Office employingsome 800 staff. He, and the NAO, are totally independent of Government. He certifies the accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which departments and other bodies have used their resources. LAND RECLAMATION IN WALES Contents Pages Summary and conclusions 1 Part 1: Introduction 8 Part 2: Effectiveness of the land reclamation programme 11 Part 3: Management of the land reclamation programme 18 Part 4: New dereliction and contamination 28 Appendices 1. Parties consulted in preparing the report 32 2. Examples of land reclamation projects 33 3. Ebbw Vale Garden Festival land reclamation scheme 39 LANE RECLAMATION IN WALES Summary and conclusions 1 The decline in the traditional industries in Wales has led to much derelict land, defined in the Welsh Office Guidelines to the Welsh Development Agency (The Agency) dated July 1986 as “land incapable of beneficial use without treatment”. This can be hazardous and contaminated as well as unsightly and an impediment to economic and other general development. The Agency are responsible for managing their programme for the reclamation of derelict land in Wales, which has been a high priority for successive governments since the Aberfan disaster in 1966. The Welsh Office are responsible for setting the overall policy, agreeing targets and approving and funding the progmmme of work. 2 The Agency’s policy objective, agreed with the Welsh Office and announced by Ministers in 1990, is to reclaim all significant dereliction, is meriting treatment because there is an economic or environmental benefit or where public safety is involved, by the year 2000. This time related objective has a major impact on the pace of the programme. The Agency make grants to cover the full costs of eligible expenditure on approved schemes by local authorities, who undertake over 96 per cent of land reclamation in Wales. The latter therefore have a key role in planning and implementing much of the programme and in securing value for money. Other applicants receive grants of up to 80 per cant of the eligible net costs incurred in approved reclamation schemes. 3 In 1989, the Committee of Public Accounts reported on the operation of the Department of the Environment’s Derelict Land Grant Scheme in England (17th Report 1988-89). The Committee made recommendations in a number of areas, including the monitoring of schemes and the measurement of effectiveness. The Government accepted the main findings and recommendations (Cm 747). 4 Against this background, the National Audit Office examined: (a) the effectiveness of the land reclamation programme in Wales; (b) the Agency’s management of the land reclamation programme; (c) the effect of new dereliction on the achievement of the policy objective. Ove Arup and Partners, Consulting Engineers, assisted the National Audit Office by advising on the technical aspects of land reclamation and appraising a representative sample of 18 sites. 5 The National Audit Office concluded from the available evidence that land reclamation in Wales, which had resulted in the clearance of some 13,000 acres of unsightly and hazardous land and had contributed to improvements in the environment and to economic development, had achieved good value for money. The main findings and conclusions in this report should be viewed in that context. LAND RECLAMATION IN WALES Effectiveness of Identification and prioritisation of derelict land the Land Reclamation 6 The main sources of the Agency’s information on derelict land are the 1988 derelict Programme land survey; local authorities’ programme bids, which reflect their own priorities and willingness to undertake certain schemes: regular contacts with the authorities; and their professional assessments. The Agency consider that sufficient data are available and have been collected to update the main conclusions of the 1988 survey as at 1 April 1993. The Agency use a weighted scoring system, which identifies the key components of a scheme, to assessand prioritise each application for inclusion in the programme or rejection. The top priority is removal of hazards, then commercial, industrial and housing development, then general amenity [paragraphs 2.2 to 2.5). Measurement and monitoring of achievement against targets 7 An important performance measure for the Agency is progress towards achievement of the overall objective of total clearance of significant dereliction by the year 2000. They also use five numerical targets against which to assessachievement year by year. These measures are cost per completed acre, acreages of new starts, acreages of completions, budgeted expenditure for the year and income for the year. They largely measure input or activity, however, and a good deal of information on the likely outturn each year is available at the time the final targets are set. 8 It would be possible to refine and extend the scoring system used to prioritise schemes so that it could be used to monitor the progress of schemes from their inclusion in the programme through to completion. Such a system could supplement the present system, which is based on “hands-on” management of projects by Agency staff, and could be extended to form the basis of more sophisticated output measures. The Agency accept the desirability of such a system and are considering together with the National Audit Office the way forward. They are anxious to ensure that the system is as objective as possible, is capable of allowing for the technical difficulties of measuring the benefits of land reclamation, and is also cost-effective in adding to the Agency’s ability to obtain further value for money [paragraphs 2.6 to 2.12). Progress to date 9 The Agency have made substantial progress in clearing the backlog of key unsafe and unsightly sites. At 31 March 1993, land reclamation completed since 1976 comprised some 13,000 acres. A further 11,000 acres are included in the programme for completionby the year 2000.Another 3,000acres have yet to be takeninto the programme but the Agency expect to complete them by the year 2000. A further 6,000 acres are judged to require little or no treatment. Achievement of the overall objective will therefore require average annual completions in excess of rates achieved to date but in general the sites in the later years of the programme are regarded by the Agency as less difficult and less hazardous than those to be reclaimed in earlier years. This assessment makes some allowance for the occurrence of new dereliction or contamination but not for any need to revisit and reassess sites against later and higher environmental standards (paragraph 2.13). Use of reclaimed land 10 The primary responsibility for making proposals for the use of land after reclamation, and for implementing the proposals, rests with local authorities. The Agency can reject or seek modifications to any proposed scheme. The Agency’s policy is to regard 2 LAND RECLAMATION IN WALES reclamation and development as two separate but related steps. Except where there has been a possibility of clawback of grant, they have kept only basic information for individual completed schemes and this does not go beyond the completion of the reclamation works. 11 The reclamation of sites for hard end-use, ie development, is sometimes more expensive than for soft end-use such as amenity areas but this can be offset by an increase in land value. Largely because of geology and topography, 80 per cent of the acreage reclaimed since 1976 has been for soft end-use. Of the balance of 20 per cent reclaimed for hard end-use, 60 per cent has already been committed to development. The remaining 40 per cent comprises sites: requiring further treatment and/or infrastructure investment with marginal development potential; being developed progressively; or recently reclaimed. 42 per cent of land reclaimed for housing has been developed. 58 per cent is awaiting development, partly as a result ofthe recession but more particularly because of the need to reclaim whole regions to ensure that the surrounding environment is conducive to development. Some new areas located in the same vicinity as vacant plots have been recently added to the programme. 12 The Agency balance what can be achieved given the physical site constraints with what is desirable in land use and cost terms. In most cases a clear development strategy or proposed end-use had been realised successfully. Where clearly-defined strategies had not been realised, or where earlier consideration could have been given to possible end-use, the cases were largely outside the control ofthe Agency, who were dependent to a large extent on the planning authorities (paragraphs 2.14 to 2.20). Management of Efficiency and economy of reclamation works the land reclamation 13 Although the Agency are responsible for approving schemes and managing the programme programme to achieve good value for money, many of the key aspects of performance are not in the Agency’s direct control but in the control of the local authorities and private landowners who have responsibility for the design and implementation of schemes (paragraph 3.2). (a) Scheme design and implementation and quality of reclamation 14 In the cases examined, scheme designers were usually chosen on the basis of experience and fees were negotiated.
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