Monthly Archives: February 2019

Waste to Land Feasibility Study – Devon

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Waste to Land Feasibility Study – Devon

Southwest Environmental Limited have recently carried out a Feasibility Study for a Company wishing to apply waste to land. The study was based around determining the amount of waste that could be applied to land for a given benefit.

The process includes using desktop data to build a hypothetical soil condition, and a hypothetical waste composition., These values are then used with nutrient allowance from RB209 to give a allowable tonnage of waste per hectare.

The study is conducted in light of applying for require permissions. There are two requirements for spreading waste to land. Firstly a permit, and secondly a deployment consent.

In order to achieve a successful application for deployment, many factor must be considered the most important of which is proving the waste is a recovery operation to the enforcer (The EA), if this cannot be done then the whole process is doomed from the outset.

Desktop Study – Wotton-under-Edge

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Desktop Study – Wotton-under-Edge

Southwest Environmental Limited have been commissioned to write a Desktop Study for a Site in Wotton-under-Edge.

Wotton-under-Edge is a market town within the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England. Located near the southern end of the Cotswolds, the Cotswold Way long-distance footpath passes through the town. Standing on the B4058 Wotton is about 5 miles from the M5 motorway.



The proposed development is an extension to a property, and is adjacent to some in-filled land. This has flagged the requirement for a Site Contamination Assessment, the first stage of which is a Desktop Study. We aim to deliver the report on a 5 Working Days turnaround.

We are happy to discuss you site free of charge over the phone, so please give us a call. We try to be as quick as possible, and if you require a report quickly please say and we will do our best to get it to you for your required deadline. 

Contaminated Land Land Advice


Desktop Study – Leeds

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Desktop Study – Leeds

Southwest Environmental Limited have recently issued a Geotechnical Desktop Study for a site in Leeds. The report followed our typical format for a Geotechnical Desktop Study including sections on:
  • Site Information
  • Land Use
  • Geology
  • Ground Stability Issues
  • Mining History
  • Review of Legacy Borehole Data 

In this instance we were asked to provide climate data and earth quake (seismic) data. It is interesting for us when we asked to vary or reports! As we do get a l;little tired of following the same format time and time again.

Earth Quakes in the UK

The largest known British earthquake occurred near the Dogger Bank in 1931, with a magnitude of 6.1. Fortunately, it was 60 miles offshore but was still powerful enough to cause minor damage to buildings on the east coast of England. The most damaging UK earthquake was in the Colchester area in 1884. The BGS publish a map of seismic reflection which we used to find a value for the design. 

Climatic Variation 


There are of course good records for climate data in the UK, however we need to add allowances for climate change these are then added on to modelled variances, whether these be historic maximum values or modelled outcomes.