Contaminated Land Assessments

Contaminated land assessments are often required when acquiring planning permission on brownfield sites. This may be at the application stage or as a condition to discharge.

It can be seen as a 3 staged process of:
  • desk study
  • site investigation, and if necessary
  • remediation

A desk study reviewing the sites history and environmental setting will always be required by the planning authority, and the outcome of this will determine whether the further stages are needed.

For many development sites a desk study backed up with a simple soil sampling programme will suffice, whereas others may require intrusive investigations with trial pits or window sampling with the installation of boreholes to monitor groundwater and landfill gas.

A range of remediation options may be appropriate including selective excavation, capping, in-situ and ex-situ bioremediation, stabilisation etc. Gas membranes may be required to protect buildings from methane and carbon dioxide.