Building on brownfield sites is one of the best ways to solve the housing crisis. Understandably, there are many people and organisations who oppose building new homes on greenfield sites, and with so many brownfield sites that are unused around the UK it is a great way to make more of this land and leave the countryside unspoilt.
Something that does need to be done with most brownfield sites, however, is remediation of the site. Because brownfield sites have previously been used for industrial reasons in the past, the ground there can be contaminated with many things, depending on what it was used for – this could be heavy metals, toxic substances or chemicals for example. When this is the case, this is something that needs to be dealt with by specialist remediation contractors such as soilfix.co.uk/services/groundwater-soil-remediation-services as it is dangerous to attempt this if you do not know what you are doing.
The first thing that needs to be done, is the area that is going to be built on needs to be assessed. This is called an environmental site assessment, and this is where it will be decided whether the area is contaminated and what it might be contaminated with. Samples will be taken from groundwater and soil at the site, which then will be tested in a laboratory for a wide range of various contaminants. It will also look at different areas all over the site, as some may well be different to others.
By doing this before any building work goes ahead it helps to ensure that safety is a priority, for both the people who will be working and building on the site, as well as for those who will be living there afterwards. This also helps us to gradually clean up the environment and not have so many dangerous substances out there to pose a danger to the public, as well as the flora and fauna in the area.
By doing this, it also benefits the environment in another way – by keeping the green spaces free of building, we can preserve the beautiful countryside that we are so fortunate to have and allow the natural world to recover.
