Can you afford to be without SiLC?
By Alex Warwick
(Published in Issue 8 of Construction Housing Magazine, 23rd September 2007)
For many years, consultants with widely varying backgrounds have provided advice to house builders relating to contaminated land.
Developers have been content to note that their appointed professionals have been chartered engineers, geologists, surveyors or chemists, to name a few of the traditional disciplines. Increasingly, however, this has become an inadequate yardstick regarding the professional expertise in land contamination that a consultant might bring to a developer’s project team.
In 1999, the Urban Task Force launched the specialist in land condition (SiLC) registration scheme. The purpose was to provide an accreditation system whereby those of us who are chartered engineers, geologists, chemists, etc might demonstrate sufficient expertise in land contamination that we could be conferred with the much-coveted ‘SiLC’ status.
Entire knowledge
For most of us, going through the SiLC appraisal was more arduous and stressful than we ever experienced when trying to attain our original chartered status. Why? Because it is designed to elicit from the candidate his or her entire knowledge of all matters relating to the development of contaminated land - encompassing risk assessment, planning, toxicology, law and everything in-between.
You simply have to be experienced; not just in one area, but in a whole range of areas. Having by definition held oneself out to be a practising contamination expert, the fear of failure and all that implies is high.
Nevertheless, gaining SiLC accreditation ought to be top of the list for every serious contaminated land professional. The bar is set high and the pass rate is less than 50%. At presents there are just 120 SiLCs. Once achieved, it rightly should be something to be very proud of. And it speaks volumes to the outside world.
What does that mean for house builders? Well, developing contaminated land is rarely straightforward, and if your advisers are not as experienced as they might be, prolonged arguments with NHBC, the Environment Agency (EA) and Environmental Health Officers (EHO) can result. This inevitably slows down house completions.
I was once involved in a sizeable housing development where an outline planning application had caused considerable concern. Following investigations by the developer’s consultants, including a specialist remediation contractor, a sophisticated remedial scheme was proposed. After much discussion, spanning over a year, the EA and EHO eventually approved the proposals subject to conditions. However, a coherent and sustained series of objections were raised by the local residents. The Local Planning Authority (LPA) eventually took the view that it could not itself determine the application. The LPA felt sufficiently concerned about the objections and the EA/EHO approvals that it was deemed necessary to appoint an independent assessor to look at all the issues and then to provide the authority with advice.
The LPA, recognising the need to appoint an acknowledged land contamination expert, consulted the public list of accredited SiLC professionals. The proposal to appoint a SiLC professional was agreed and accepted by all interested parties. And that is how I became involved with the scheme.
The independent assessment found that the developer’s advisers had shown only that the proposed remediation might work. No one, including at least one of the regulators, seemed confident in the proposals.
The technical objections put forward by the local resident were largely found to be flawed, though some points were highly valid. The report concluded that with further work, the proposals might be sufficiently robust to facilitate a defensible approval by the LPA. The developer subsequently withdrew the planning application and sought to act on the recommendations of the SiLC report.
The moral of this is not that a SiLC can ruin a developer’s chances of obtaining planning consent but that had a more experienced team been involved at the outset, matters would not have reached such a pass.
That leads to something that is often not talked about among consultants but it is critical, and indeed it forms a part of the SiLC code of practice: if you do not have the expertise, say so. Too often, consultants are reluctant to admit the limits of their knowledge and they will try to muddle through. That is not good enough. Clients deserve to know that they are getting sound, confident and expert advice; and they deserve to know the limits of that expertise.
Expertise counts
I asses a great many third-party SI reports on behalf of my land–buying clients. The standard of these reports varies tremendously. There are many good ones out there, written by SiLC and non-SiLC accredited professionals alike. However, reports that refer to ICRCL, or which recommend wholesale removal of vast volumes of made ground because the arsenic concentration is a little high, still abound.
It is in all housebuilders’ interests to take an increasing note of the professional expertise of their chosen consultants. Why risk a planning application or high costs needlessly? With LPAs, EHOs, the EA and the NHBC increasingly recognising the status of SiLC accreditation, can developers continue to afford not to employ an accredited SiLC professional?
Alex Warwick has 20 years experience in the investigation, assessment and remediation of contaminated land. He is a chartered civil engineer and a SiLC, and is the managing director of Nicholls Colton Geotechnical. He leads a team of engineers and geologists who assist both public and private-sector clients in assessing, developing and regulating their brownfield sites.