Million Plus

An ERDF-funded project to establish a centre of excellence in brownfield research and innovation supporting the regeneration of the Black Country.

The Brownfield Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC) will establish a centre of excellence in brownfield research and innovation. The specific activities include the reclamation and refurbishment of building space on the Springfield site, bringing approximately 290m2 of redundant space (3.6% of total) back into use as the Brownfield Research and Innovation Centre. The project also entails the creation of a specialist laboratory, testing and archive space that can be accessed and shared with local business, as well as investment in the latest industry standard equipment in analysis, scanning, and land and ground surveying.

BRIC will give rise to a data centre: a centralised database of geotechnical, geochemical, geophysical, economic and ecological data associated with site development, to allow more robust phase 1 and phase 2 site investigations, reducing developer uncertainty and providing more accurate remediation costings.

In addition to mapping and plotting the many brownfield sites across the Black Country, the centre will develop a knowledge bank on remediation best practice and share gathered intelligence and expertise with stakeholders in both the public and private sectors.

The BRIC team will engage with the private sector informing on how land and buildings could be restored, remediated and bought back into use, with a focus on bioremediation and environmental sensitivities, and developing environmentally sound solutions for complex remediation issues.