Flood Risk Assessment and Environmental Investigations

Adding Value to Land

As an environmental consultancy, Silkstone offers a comprehensive range of services for planning, legislative and land development issues. Our services provide a means of adding value to land by gaining the confidence of buyers, statutory authorities and the public through thorough environmental investigation and reports.

Silkstone offers a full application service for Planning consent, PPC permits, Waste Management licences and other consents ensuring current legislatation is met throughout.  Silkstone can carry out a wide range of environmental assessments including for contaminated land (see below for more details) and flood risk assessment. If the demands of our clients exceed our in-house expertise we have strong working connections with specialist consultants in a wide range of fields to ensure the that our client requirements are fulfilled. Our environmental services include:

• Initial Site Investigation
• Environmental Impact Assessments
• Licence, Permit and Planning Applications
• Hydrogeological surveys
• Land and Mineral Surveying
• Ground Remediation
• Area Searches
• Project management in all these disciplines.

Contaminated Land

Silkstone possess a team of personnel specialising in competencies such as geology, chemistry and hydrology. We offer a fully integrated service of contaminated land related solutions. This includes carrying out comprehensive Phase 1 desk studies, which considers a whole range of site specific information from a variety of sources. A detailed Phase 2 site investigation follows, involving the use of potentially a number of different intrusive techniques such as trial pitting, window sampling, cable percussive and rotary drilling. The investigative strategy is based on conclusions and observations drawn from the conceptual model, desk study and site inspection.

A clearly defined sampling protocol enables our engineers to delineate any potential "hot spots" of contamination. Samples are analysed by MCERTS and UKAS accredited laboratories.

A Generic Quantitative Risk Assessment (GQRA) involves comparing chemical test results of samples with Soil Guideline Values (SGVs) published by the Environment Agency. Where values are not available, a Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessment (DQRA) is performed, in which we are able to derive site specific assessment values using the risk assessment model SNIFFER. These methods of assessing land quality are outlined in the Environment Agency's framework guidance CLR11 (2004).

Upon analysis of the results, a feasible remediation strategy is proposed so as to block any potential pollutant pathways that may pose as a risk to a list of sensitive receptors such as humans, plants, controlled waters and buried concrete structures.

Find out about our Environmental Projects.