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Japanese knotweed has risen in prominence recently, you may have even read my 2018 blog post on the subject), it is often maligned by solicitors, surveyors and lenders as public enemy number one, and still regularly sees articles written in the mainstream media eg, The Telegraph (2019), The Independent (2019) and The Express (2019). However,...
The Groundsure team gathered at Brighton station at 6:30am on a sunny Wednesday morning. Coffee and breakfast pastries purchased, we were ready to board our train to Southampton where we would be spending the day with James MacTavish at Ordnance Survey (OS), as part of Groundsure’s Customer Day programme. Upon arrival at the OS building...
The UK has a long history of intensive production and farming. In fact, farming is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, which contributes almost £122 billion to the country’s economy while providing 61% of the food eaten in the UK1. With farming being such big business it is not surprising that farmers along with the government...
This year I was lucky enough to book myself in with a visit to the British Geological Survey (BGS) for my Customer Day. Going in I hadn’t heard much about BGS beyond the data they supplied to Groundsure, but this was soon to change. Our first stop was the main reception where we met Gerry,...
Halloween is nearly upon us, and bringing with it thoughts of ghosts, skeletons and spooky cemeteries. Graveyards have long been considered scary places thanks to the corpses beneath our feet, but probably not because of the contamination risk they can pose to groundwater. A body might seem harmless (zombies excepted), but for those of us...
Beginning in September 2018 a study was commissioned by the Scottish Government, and undertaken by consultancy RSK Stirling, to investigate the prevalence of carbon dioxide from disused mineral mines and the implications for residential buildings1. On 5th September 2019 the Scottish Government made the results of the study available. The investigation considered past incidents involving...
There isn’t a secure definition of clean beauty. Words like ‘natural’, ‘green’ and ‘hypoallergenic’ can be connected to the concept. However, without a standard, it can be ambiguous and open to misuse. In addition, chemical free doesn’t apply because all beauty product ingredients are derived from chemicals, either from nature or man-made (Burney. E). The...
Uncertainty, misinformation and political unrest are not a new phenomenon within the United Kingdom. However, we are currently passing through particularly turbulent and uncertain times and the future of HS2 is contributing to this. This project has been inherited by three conservative prime ministers and four different conservative/ coalition governments, after it was originally devised...
Gaining planning approval for a site can be a long and resource intensive process. With austerity measures biting at local council budgets, planning teams have often been disproportionately cut[1]. This means good quality contaminated land reporting is a benefit to them as well as to the developer who is then likely to experience fewer unexpected...