Discharging Planning conditions - Imported Top Soil

[Mikey_1980]

Morning all looking for some advice, EH made us jump through loads of hoops for soil contamination which all came up negative, th desk study and site walkover said there was no risk of contamination but the EH still made us do multiple soil samples.

Any way the final condition we had was any imported top soil had to be tested, after speaking to numerous suppliers I found a company with a fresh batch of premium blend top soil which had just been tested, I duly emailed the EH team to check it would be ok, waited a week no response to brought it anyway, I received an email from them last night saying yes they had no issues with the soil test results, but they wanted a sample in situ from each 20 tonne load that is delivered, is this reasonable to ask for additional tests?  The soil is from a new site which the local EH are obviously involved in, in the same bourough and the test results were carried out two weeks ago.

[ToughButterCup]

Reasonable doesn't matter too much. They can. So they do.

Creative answers to those conditions might be required, perhaps? Lets start with how will evidence for each load be acquired? And can't you ask your supplier to test their product, and give that to the LPA EH department?

The supplier should be able to evidence the quality of the product. Hopefully.

[Auchlossen]

I have also been involved with this 'contaminated' business, tho I am not yet at the stage of finishing and landscaping. How many loads are  you bringing in? I think the samples cost £30 to test IIRC. Can you not collect a yoghourt pot full from each load, seal it up, bag it and send it off to the lab for test? If you are pretty confident of the source, you might even risk doing this after the load has arrived on site. I had [yet another] sample which I scraped up and sent off for a special quantitative test [which showed zero contamination!] in this manner, and since it was needed in a hurry, the van called by site and picked it up to take it off to lab. Normal turnaround is 3-4 days or 24 hours for a small premium. You need to strike the balance between a sensible/reasonable approach, complying with the bureaucratic procedures and providing 'evidence'.

[Mikey_1980]

I have the full soil test for the batch of soil that has been delivered to site, they took 50 samples and have provided me with the complete written report for the soil, the same report is also filed with the same EH department as they monitor the site. They wanted tested in SITU, I am gussing it is quite easy for it to get contaminated in the 12 miles it travelled to our site.  If I had any other officer it probably wouldn't be an issue all the local soil testing companies referenced our officer by name when I was going through the requirements and when they were on leave, the officers colleagues questioned why we had to provide so much information and discharged the conditions.  I gues I will have to stump up another £1000 for the testing.

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, Mikey_1980 said:

 I guess I will have to stump up another £1000 for the testing.

Makes you completely understand why many buck the system wherever they can.