Fair process and the submission of bogus percolation test results

[ToughButterCup]

A good mate of mine is upset: in my estimation, justifiably.  Here's why.

 

It would appear that -with impunity- falsified Percolation Test results can be submitted as acceptable, valid evidence in the Planning Process. I hasten to add that this case refers to one outside  our Local Planning Authority. 

 

What happened?

Planning permission was awarded on a plot near his house. A pre-condition for the award of planning was the normal Percolation Test. Because the plot near his house lies on the same type of ground (heavy clay) my mate knows that the percolation test must have failed. But that's not the issue

 

What is the issue?

The Ombudsman considering the case says that the simple submission of results (any results, true or false) is the sole responsibility of the applicant. Since there is no system internal to the LPA that checks the test results, any results can be submitted: even false ones.

 

The Ombudsman says

' ...It is important to remember that the obligation to provide accurate information lies with the
applicant. If Mr X’s suspicions are correct and a problem arises, it is likely the
Council would be able to control it, either through planning or building control
enforcement, or perhaps more likely, through environmental health action.... '

 

So you can build a house based on bogus test results, and sell it before the problem becomes apparent. And everyone around the plot has to suffer the consequences even after the builder has sold the house.

 

How is that system fair?

[ProDave]

I did my own percolation tests for building control. Nobody questioned anything.

 

I was honest enough to highlight the problem with seasonal high water table, which is why we had the struggle to find something that worked and ended up with a permit to discharge into the burn.

 

I could have just ignored the water table issue and installed an infiltration field and nobody would have been any wiser, except me when the garden became a swamp.

 

While I agree it is wrong that anyone can submit false results, I would not like to see a system where you have to use an accredited testing company for things like this.

[PeterW]

PP for our build is a conversion and the architect submitted the plans for the existing - and to be retained - building with the door and window reversed in position and a window in a gable that didn’t exist ... and it was passed with no questions ..!

[Triassic]

I did my own peculation tests. No questions asked. 

 

I do know that the perculation field will work because Ive just raised the ground by four feet using the limestone excavated from my basement.

 

 

[billt]

8 minutes ago, Triassic said:

I did my own peculation tests.

 

 

Could do with a few of those in our finance industry!

[Oz07]

By building the house they're not increasing the rainfall. If the ground was impermeable before then surely building the house would not make things any worse. It may in fact make things better by being able to direct runoff or engineer the ground to have a storage capacity? Tell your mate to stop being a nosy nimby. 

[ProDave]

But if you have a private waste water plant discharging to an infiltration field then you are adding to the water that the land has to absorb.

[joe90]

Well, when we hired a planning consultant to help fight our planning refusal they submitted a false percolation test (we are on solid clay and I knew the figures were wrong, plus I know they did not dig one hole) and no one questioned it, I have just submitted to the EA a form to allow discharge to a ditch with a “ rumble drain” like ProDave did, didn’t realise it has a 13 week lead time (the Sewerage treatment Plant is being installed Monday ?) wish me luck guys ?.

[Hecateh]

5 hours ago, ProDave said:

While I agree it is wrong that anyone can submit false results, I would not like to see a system where you have to use an accredited testing company for things like this.

 

I guess regulations for many of these things come into being because people do just this. 

 

So regulations are put into place saying these things have to be done professionally or at least signed off by a professional. - some or many of whom submit or sign off the same false or inadequate reports - usually whilst indemnifying themselves against inaccuracies (incompetencies) (despite charging stupid amounts for doing so) knowing that 99 times out of a 100, at least, that problems are unlikely to occur in the future close enough for them to still be close enough to have their accountability enforced.  

 

Then something like Grenfall happens and everyone starts covering their backs and demanding paper trails - which often aren't worth the 'cyberspace' they take up because everyone has covered their own backs so the accountability goes round in circles.  ... Meaning the poor bugger who paid the premium because of the issue is also left with the responsibility because they can't afford to take on the company who put them in this position (Company in this case being 1. big business who can easily afford to take on the individual 2. someone who has already gone out of business or 3. small company who have no money so will just go bankrupt because they can't pay.  

[Ferdinand]

How is it possible sensibly to test a fake result, short of the Council employing a person to dig another hole? And how would it be enforced short of expensive inspections and/or compulsory sample drilling?

 

And how would simple bribery be prevented?

 

And it would have to pay for itself.

 

Ferdinand

 

[Triassic]

But where would the need for professional sign off end? Foundations, the construction of the structural elements of a house, windows, plumping, gas, electrics, insulation, air tightness. Could be the death nell of self Build.

[PeterW]

43 minutes ago, Triassic said:

But where would the need for professional sign off end? Foundations, the construction of the structural elements of a house, windows, plumping, gas, electrics, insulation, air tightness. Could be the death nell of self Build.

 

I think the opposite.... the big boys are being caught our time and again now and I think the attention to detail from self builders is recognised as being a good thing. But building control is far too lax - some due to cost I expect - and whilst the standards are there, in a lot of instances they are not enforced. 

 

What is needed is a set of more reasonable and more useable building codes similar to the US system and better enforcement by building control - why shouldn’t every building on a development be inspected ..?? 

[Jeremy Harris]

The fiddling of perc tests has been going on for decades. 

 

I remember when I was a small boy, and we were having a large extension and granny flat built on to the side of the house, that the builder fiddled the test (same builder that taught me how to lay bricks and gave me the bit of bent galvanised bucket handle I still have for pointing).  He showed me how to do it, dig a deeper hole than needed, bury a large biscuit tin with nail holes in the bottom and no lid upside down in the bottom of the hole, and carefully cover it up so the hole looks like a standard perc test one.

 

When the building inspector comes along with his stopwatch, pour the required amount of water in, which drains into the biscuit tin beneath allowing the level to drop within the required time limit.

 

If it was going on in the 1960's, then I doubt much has changed since, especially as building control now seems generally a great deal more relaxed than it was back then.

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, Triassic said:

But where would the need for professional sign off end? Foundations, the construction of the structural elements of a house, windows, plumping, gas, electrics, insulation, air tightness. Could be the death nell of self Build.

Well foundation trench inspections are required by building control, as are witnessing a drain pressure test. So it's no a very big leap to ask for BC to witness a percolation test, other than the fact it will be a longer site visit waiting for the water level in the hole to go down.

[Jeremy Harris]

26 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Well foundation trench inspections are required by building control, as are witnessing a drain pressure test. So it's no a very big leap to ask for BC to witness a percolation test, other than the fact it will be a longer site visit waiting for the water level in the hole to go down.

 

 

In the old days building inspectors used to witness perc tests.  I've seen them do it twice, once back in the mid-1960's, once in the mid-1970's when rebuilding a derelict farmhouse in Cornwall with a friend.

[Declan52]

We used to do loads of percolation tests when we where doing site investigations. Loved it when it was stiff clay. Dig the hole and fill with water and then go to sleep in the van for an hr and the water wouldn't have dropped a bit.

Easy money.

[ProDave]

Or dig the hole at the wrong time of the year here, and watch it fill up with water all by itself.

 

I have to say our partial soakaway then discharge to the burn is working well. At this time of year as I predicted it is working as a land drain to keep the water table down, there is a constant small trickle from it even when we are not discharging any water. In the summer it is the reverse with most of what we discharge being absorbed by the soakaway and very little going into the burn.

[Declan52]

I done one beside a beach in Dundalk and no matter how many times I told the engineer the water would go no where as the tide was coming in he wouldn't listen. The water he poured in came out during the test. 

[Oz07]

So apart from waste water which could be dealt with alternatively what is the big problem here. All my surface water gets sent into the combined sewer because of clay ground. Previously it was allowed to drain into the ground. Which is the worse option and why is this a part of the planning process- as opposed to building control