Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 22.1
Derelict land by type in England, April 1993.
per cent). Broadly speaking, dereliction caused by
mining activity decreased, as a result of
reclamation, preventive legislation and improved
engineering techniques, but there were increases
in the categories of military land (as a result of the
'peace dividend'), industrial dereliction and 'other
forms' (including former landfill sites and
commercial and residential premises).
THE REUSE OF DERELICT LAND
Much of the study of derelict, vacant and
contaminated land, and the collection of survey
information, is designed to encourage its
productive reuse and prevent its further
occurrence. Most countries in northern Europe
have planning policies and financial packages to
deal with damaged industrial land (DoE 1989),
and most involve a degree of public/private
sector collaboration. Germany, for example, has
had an active programme since 1979 through the
Grundstucksfond-Ruhr,
but across the European
Union as a whole the procedures are very
variable. Despite differences in approach, there
are often similarities in the outcome of major
restoration schemes across Europe. For example,
the Festival Park development of shops, leisure
facilities and landscaping undertaken in the late
1980s on a former steel mill site in Stoke-on-
Trent (Plate 22.2) has a direct, albeit larger,
counterpart in the reclamation of the steel mill
at Oberhausen in the Ruhr, completed in 1996
to form the Centro development. Similarly, the
redevelopment of the London docks has many
parallels in the enormous reconstruction of the
dockland area along the estuary of the River
Tagus in Lisbon.
Successive British governments have pursued
policies to prevent dereliction occurring, by
imposing restoration conditions upon
permissions granted for mineral extraction, and
to encourage the reclamation of existing
dereliction through a regime of grants and
subsidies. Limited subsidies have been available
to selected local authorities in Britain since the
1950s, but a comprehensive scheme was
Source:
DoE 1995.
various forms has caused the largest amount of
dereliction, accounting for approximately 40 per
cent of the total, a proportion that rises to nearly
55 per cent in Scotland. The second largest
category, that of general industrial dereliction,
accounts for a further quarter in England. Overall,
the distribution of dereliction—Figures 22.1 and
22.2 —reflects Britain's industrial past. Industrial
decay and closure has often been accompanied by
a loss of population, a deterioration of housing, a
collapse of community confidence and the closure
of utilities and services, leading in turn to
cumulative processes of dereliction. The local
authorities with the highest densities of dereliction
were, unsurprisingly, urban: in Newham, Barking
and Dagenham, Greenwich, Sandwell, Stoke-on-
Trent, Salford, Lincoln, Liverpool and Bury, over 4
per cent of the authority's total area was derelict
in 1993.
Although individual sites may remain unused
for many years, derelict land is not a static
phenomenon. New dereliction is created when
businesses collapse or activities are abandoned, but
at the same time land reclamation and
redevelopment removes sites from the record. The
problem for Britain has been that the overall stock
has remained disappointingly stable. Between the
surveys of 1988 and 1993, for example, nearly
9500 hectares of reclamation was offset by 8600
hectares of 'new' dereliction, giving a net
reduction of just 900 hectares (equivalent to 2.2
