Safeguarded wharves and building beside a waterway

A safeguarded wharf is protected for waterborne freight handling, and that protection survives long periods of disuse. Buying a riverside site with a rusting crane on it and assuming the residential value will win is the single most expensive mistake in waterside development. Safeguarded wharf planning policy exists precisely to resist that argument, and the burden of proving a wharf is no longer viable sits with the applicant.

Even where the site itself is not safeguarded, building next to a working wharf or an operational navigation brings a set of constraints that has nothing to do with flood risk and everything to do with ownership, structures and other people's operations.

What safeguarding protects

The point of safeguarding is to keep the capacity to move freight by water. Aggregates, waste, construction materials and marine dredged sand all travel more efficiently by barge than by lorry, and once a wharf is redeveloped it does not come back.

In London, wharves are safeguarded through directions and carried into the London Plan, which expects safeguarded wharves to be used for waterborne freight handling and resists other uses. Outside London, wharves, aggregate depots and rail transhipment sites are safeguarded through minerals and waste local plans and through the development plan generally, since national policy expects plans to safeguard existing and planned sites for mineral handling and for rail and water transhipment.

The test for release is demanding. Expect to demonstrate that the wharf is no longer viable or capable of being made viable for freight, with marketing evidence, a technical assessment of the berth and the landside capacity, and a view from the navigation authority. A general statement that no operator has been in touch is not evidence.

Where the designations appear

Look in four places before committing.

The adopted local plan policies map, for the wharf designation itself and for any waterway corridor or waterspace policy. The minerals and waste local plan, which is often a separate document prepared by the county or a joint authority and is frequently overlooked. The safeguarding directions or schedules where they apply. And the navigation authority's own planning guidance, which sets out what it expects to see.

Waterway corridor policies commonly cover more than the wharf. They deal with the setting of the waterway, active frontages, public access along the bank, moorings, and the design of anything that overshadows or encloses the channel.

The navigation authority and other consents

Identify who controls the water. That may be the Canal and River Trust, the Environment Agency where it exercises navigation functions, a statutory harbour authority, the Port of London Authority on the tidal Thames, or the Broads Authority.

Several of these bodies are statutory or non-statutory consultees for defined categories of development affecting their waterways, so check the current Development Management Procedure Order schedule and the authority's own thresholds rather than assuming a courtesy consultation.

Planning permission is not the only consent. Works in, over, under or near the water usually need a separate authorisation from the navigation authority, and works within a defined distance of a main river need a flood risk activity permit from the Environment Agency. These run on their own timescales and are not conditions the council can discharge for you.

Agent of change matters here as well. Where new homes are proposed next to a working wharf or a boatyard, national policy places the responsibility for mitigating the effect of existing operations on the new development with the applicant. That means the Noise Impact Assessment has to model the wharf operating at full permitted intensity rather than at its current, quieter reality, and the design has to cope with it.

Structure, access and riparian ownership

Waterside sites carry structural liabilities that inland sites do not.

The river or canal wall may be in third party ownership, in poor condition, or both. Establish who owns it, who is responsible for maintaining it, and what condition it is in, because a wall that needs rebuilding can cost more than the site. A Structural Survey covering the wall, the bank and any existing quay furniture should happen before exchange.

Riparian boundaries are rarely where people assume. Titles, historic conveyances and the position of the bank at different states of tide all interact, and a strip of land you thought you owned may be vested elsewhere.

Access rights matter as much. Towpaths are often subject to public rights and to the navigation authority's own controls, and using one for construction access requires permission, a licence and usually a payment. Building close to a boundary you cannot cross means designing for a build without scaffolding on the far side, which changes the construction method.

Ecology in a waterway corridor

Canals and rivers are continuous habitat corridors, and that is how ecologists and consultees treat them.

Water voles are the recurring issue on canal and river banks, with survey seasons running through the spring and summer and legal protection for their burrows. Otters, bats commuting along the water, nesting birds in the bank vegetation and aquatic species all feature. Invasive species are common on urban waterway margins and need a management plan rather than a note.

Where works could affect the status of a designated water body, a Water Framework Directive assessment is likely to be requested, particularly for anything involving the bank, the bed or a new outfall.

Programme the ecology early, because water vole and other survey windows do not accommodate a submission date.

Getting materials in and out

The construction logistics on a waterside site are a planning matter rather than a problem the contractor sorts out later.

Where the site fronts a navigable waterway, the council and the navigation authority will ask whether materials can come in by water. On larger schemes that question is asked seriously, and a scheme that dismisses it without analysis looks poorly prepared. Barge delivery reduces lorry movements and it needs a usable berth, a crane position and a landside route.

Where road access is the only option, the Construction Management Plan has to deal with narrow bank-side roads, towpath closures and diversions, crane oversail over water or third party land, and any navigation stoppage that has to be agreed with the authority months ahead.

A Transport Assessment for a waterside scheme should address the freight question openly, since water transport policy sits inside transport policy rather than beside it.

What a submission has to evidence

For a scheme on or adjacent to a safeguarded wharf, expect to provide viability and marketing evidence on the freight use, a technical assessment of the berth and landside capacity, the navigation authority's position in writing, and an agent of change assessment covering noise, vibration, dust and light from the retained operation.

For a scheme beside a waterway more generally: the structural condition and ownership of the wall, the ecological survey work with the seasonal windows respected, the Water Framework Directive position, the construction logistics including any works over water, and the design response to the waterway corridor policy.

One honest uncertainty. Practice on wharf release varies, and the weight given to a marketing exercise differs between authorities and between the navigation bodies. The way to reduce that uncertainty is to engage the navigation authority before the application rather than during it, and to record what was agreed.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority, the relevant navigation authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

To see which reports a waterside site is likely to need, browse the PlanScope report types.

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