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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Costing the Earth

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Fresh ideas from the sharpest minds working toward a cleaner, greener planet

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Costing the Earth: The Big Clean Up

The Big Clean Up

01/03/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Costing the Earth, The Big Clean Up

We need to build new homes and schools on ex-industrial land, but how safe is it?

The shambolic rejuvenation of Corby's steelworks may have put an end to the boom in building on brownfield sites. Alice Roberts investigates.

When Corby Borough Council was ruled to be negligent in its efforts to clean up the site of the town's enormous steelworks, a shiver ran through the building industry.

For a decade builders have been urged to build new homes, offices, schools and hospitals on brownfield land. It meant that ex-industrial eyesores were cleaned up and it saved greenfield land from the bulldozers.

Last summer's court judgement opened the way for families who believe their children were born with birth defects because of airborne contamination from the Corby development to seek compensation. As a result groups opposing development on their local patch of contaminated land have been given powerful ammunition.

Alice Roberts visits development sites across the country to ask what impact the Corby decision will have on Britain's building industry. Will it be cheaper and safer for risk-averse councils and developers to turn their attention back to greenfield land?

She visits Britain's biggest building site to see how the Olympic Delivery Authority is using cutting-edge techniques to clean up this enormous site and travels to Bishopton near Glasgow where the proposed development of a former armaments factory has split the community.

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