Council speaks out on Spodden Valley development

Rochdale Council has spoken out about the current situation surrounding the development of Spodden Valley in response to a series of questions posed by Rochdale Online reporters.

The questions and the responses given by the Council are now published here in full.

Earlier this month the owners of the site, MMC Estates, indicated that the only way to make the site safe is through a development led remediation of the site.

Below are the questions posed by Rochdale Online and the full responses received from the Council today (Friday 24 October).

How long is the contamination assesment by the council expected to take, when are the results expected back?

The Council is not undertaking the assessment but the Council will (on behalf of a range of agencies) require that the assessment is more than adequate to ensure public safety.

The Council has already invested a considerable sum in an independent report setting out what an assessment should provide. The current work is around a sampling protocol, the aim of which, when carried out, is obtaining sufficient information about ground conditions to allow an accurate assessment to be made. If the sampling proves to be insufficient or raises further issues the Council will require further sampling.

The assessment will be an ongoing process and will continue through all stages of the proposals being updated and revised if and when further information becomes available.

Is the proposed development of the site by MMC Estates the only option for the site the council is considering at the moment?

The site is owned by MMC, who have lodged a planning application. The Council has to deal with this application.

We have explored alternative remediation options on behalf of the TBA Working Group and it is clear that government policy would expect us to fully explore private sector redevelopment as the best means of securing the remediation of this site.

Do you believe the only way asbestos will be cleared from Spodden Valley is through the development by MMC Esates?

The Council recognised that remediation of this site would be difficult and expensive, which is why it included the whole site and required a proposal to cover the whole site in the ‘area of opportunity’.

As stated above there is an active proposal from the site owner which the Council must respond to. Once the planning application is dealt with, assuming an approval is forthcoming, it is up to MMC whether they develop the site directly or another developer comes in.

Any planning permission would run with the land rather than a developer. However, were the site to be sold by MMC to another developer and that developer to commence development of the site, all planning and safety requirements agreed would equally fall on any new developer.

Could the site be remediated without the development by MMC Estates?

We have explored other approaches and the TBA Working Group has accepted the difficulties attached to any other approach.

What will happen to the site if it is deemed by the council experts/HSE to be too contaminated/too dangerous to be developed?

It is too early to know whether development is practical but no other approach is likely to be successful until it is demonstrated that remediation through development is impractical.

While there is a requirement that any proposals cover the whole site, the site itself includes a number of different areas, with different use histories for which the assessment might reach different conclusions. If this is the case both the applicant and the Council need to review their positions and assess whether a reduced scheme would be viable.

What is the likely future of the site and subsequent asbestos contamination if the MMC development is rejected by the council?

The process the Council is currently adopting is to engage with both MMC and Save Spodden Valley to establish if an agreed approach can be achieved. Central to this is an understanding of the scale of contamination and potential means of safe remediation. It is hoped that an agreed solution can be achieved.

What are the council's plans if the MMC development falls through?

The withdrawal of MMC would be a product of one of two scenarios:

1 - Failure of MMC to develop the site but the development is practical. In this case an alternative developer may need to be sought.

2 - Failure of the scheme because of technical or financial issues. In this case, if there was no private sector led solution an alternative public sector scheme would need to be explored.