The Town and Country Planning (Northwood Headquarters) Special Development Order 2025

Groundwater protection

9.—(1) In this paragraph—

“contamination expert” means a person appointed to assess and prevent contamination risks in accordance with arrangements made under a CEMP (see paragraph 7(2)(l)(i) (construction and environmental management plan));

“groundwater risk” means, in relation to an underground work, a contamination risk that may reasonably be expected to arise in relation to groundwater as a result of carrying out that work;

“requisite measures” means such measures as a contamination expert considers are necessary to be taken in order to prevent any groundwater risks that the expert has identified;

“underground work” means any excavation, tunnelling or boring below the surface of the ground, piling, or other construction work carried out underground and comprised in relevant development, and includes work undertaken in connection with the installation of any sewer, main, pipe, cable or other utility apparatus, or for the purposes of water management.

(2) Subject to sub-paragraph (3), no underground work may be carried out unless the Defence Secretary—

(a) has commissioned a report from a contamination expert on groundwater risks and requisite measures,

(b) if the contamination expert’s report identifies a groundwater risk, has—

(i) obtained any relevant approval required to implement the requisite measures, and

(ii) implemented the requisite measures, and

(c) has given the Secretary of State a document setting out—

(i) details of the contamination expert’s relevant qualifications and experience, and

(ii) that the contamination expert’s report identified no groundwater risk, or

(iii) that the requisite measures have been implemented.

(3) If, or to the extent that, the implementation of requisite measures is inseparable from the carrying out of underground work, the requirements of sub-paragraphs (2)(b)(ii) and (c)(iii) are complied with if, on completion of the underground work, the Defence Secretary gives the Secretary of State written confirmation that the requisite measures have been implemented.