September 2003

Work is flooding in for Flood Risk assessments in response to PPG25 for projects for developers, architects, landowners and planning consultants. The Environment Agency is now insisting that these assessments are carried out as part of the planning process.

More of these assessments are requiring river modelling, using storm events generated by the Flood Estimation Handbook (FEH)

The water companies are not the only organisations with extensive sewerage assets. We are carrying out condition surveys and renovation projects for sewers and sewage treatment plants for local authorities, industrial clients and schools. See our press release for the work we have completed for South Holland District Council.

If you propose to dig a hole in the road, you must contact all the utilities who may be affected, and find out what they have in the area. This is a pain in the neck. We have a department which does nothing else, and we can normally carry out these searches much cheaper that utility contractors can do for themselves. We recently completed a search for utilities affected by a 200km mains relay programme in Eastern England, and routinely carry out utility searches for our developer clients.

We can also search for nature conservation and archaeological interests in the area. We have been involved with Great Crested Newts, Badgers, potential bat colonies, Japanese Knotweed and a Napoleonic prisoner of war camp.

Industrial effluent treatment is becoming more difficult, and attention is being focussed on this forgotten part of the factory by the IPPC regulations which are being rolled out across industry. We are involved in a number of large and small scale effluent treatment programmes.