PROJECT EXAMPLE: REDUCING COSTS FOR A PRIVATE PROPERTY DEVELOPER
We were contracted by a private developer to provide a watching brief to supervise Japanese knotweed removal. The land was planned for a development of residential properties and needed to be cleared of knotweed and overgrown vegetation before works could commence.
DENSE VEGETATION
This site was part of a plot of vacant land consisting of 0.4 hectare of dense scrub vegetation with some slate towards the boundaries. Some parts were heavily overgrown with brambles and Japanese knotweed tangled together. The density of some areas was a challenge, we needed to sort out the knotweed from the green vegetation, whilst keeping the project costs on track.
Watching brief
When a client wants to use their own equipment and operatives but they do not have the expertise to carry out the required works, we are contracted to supervise. One of our highly qualified excavation operatives will watch the team carrying out operations and oversee the works.
On this project our client provided their own dig team, and we provided the site supervision and haulage of waste materials. Initially our supervisor will do a walk-over of the site with the contract manager to establish any issues or considerations we may need to advise on. Site supervision starts with a Tool-Box Talk to the team carrying out the works. This covers health and safety, biosecurity measures and any technical aspects of the project. Only when this has been completed will we allow works to commence.
Cost savings
Ever conscious to provide cost savings to our clients we proposed to separate the waste into noxious and green material. We directed the dig team in separating the knotweed from the vegetation, thus reducing the volume of knotweed contaminated waste and soils that was taken to licensed landfill. This was a fairly large site, so in total we removed 50 tonnes of knotweed soil.
Preventing spread
As the site would eventually contain residential houses we also installed root barriers along the edges to ensure there would be no future issues with knotweed after development.
Site supervision means working closely with the client at all times. On this site the boundaries were not clearly defined and the ground was very uneven but with the client’s engineer marking out the plot for us, we were able to install the root barrier along the correct boundary edges. The resulting clean site enabled the planned development to go ahead without risk of knotweed contamination or future issues.