What’s really beneath your land? Why early insight is your best defence against risk 

Under every site lies a set of risks that can dramatically reshape your build programme, your costs and ultimately your profitability.

Whether you’re a landowner looking to sell to developers or a house builder with brownfield or grey belt projects, understanding the true risks of building on your sites can affect your bottom line significantly.

Hidden contamination, poor fill, geotechnical instability or legacy industrial uses can transform what appears to be a viable plot into a challenge that consumes time, drains budget and jeopardises warranty eligibility.

Yet many projects still move forward without the depth of early insight needed to avoid these pitfalls.

There are, after all, three key areas to any successful development: time, quality and cost.

Getting just one of those wrong can lead to make-or-break challenges that hurt efficiency, productivity and profit; worse still, it can seriously damage your reputation.

It’s why builders’ in-house technical advisers work hard to identify hazards, from contamination and ground gases to geotechnical risks such as instability, unstable slopes and subsurface voids.

But in a competitive, fast-paced industry where even small surprises can cause astronomical expense, is it enough to rely only on your existing expertise?

The need to go further…

While your in-house consultants bring valuable expertise, their knowledge is often focused on just one or two core disciplines. Enhancing this with complementary multidisciplinary expertise can pay dividends.

By working closely with your team, our Land Quality Service can add insights built on extensive experience and our holistic overview of wide-ranging technical subjects such as earthworks, gas and even radioactivity.

Reviewing your site early for all necessary geotechnical and geo-environmental factors reduces land risks and helps ensure that your project can achieve full insurance and warranty coverage with confidence.

Suddenly, you’re not making your land good enough. You’re making it more valuable.

…and earlier 

Taking advantage of our Land Quality Service team adds value.

But how much value depends on how early you engage with us – because knowledge isn’t just power; it’s protection against costly surprises.

As Andy Clark, Specialist Geotechnical Engineer at NHBC, explains, the sooner conversations about your land begin, the more you stand to gain.

“If there is anything I have learned in my time in our Land Quality Service, it’s that there’s a huge benefit to bringing us in at as early a stage as possible”.

“We’re often involved a couple of years or so ahead of construction, which allows us to become very much part of the customer’s project team.

“It’s much more efficient, cost-effective and less stressful to work collectively towards a predetermined foundation solution from an early stage, rather than to remediate later in the dark without a clear goal in mind.

“Because we know what foundations are accepted by NHBC, we can help shape your roadmap to getting there.”

And of course, nobody is better qualified to advise on the type of foundation design suitable for your land’s risk profile than our Land Quality Service team. It was them, after all, who were the principal authors of Chapter 4.6 of the NHBC Standards, which details the use of engineered fill that is acceptable to achieve compliance with the technical requirements for our much-respected Buildmark warranty and insurance cover.

What’s more, the team also has a remit from our underwriting department to take on more complex remediation projects that may extend beyond guidance typically offered within our Land Quality Standards. 

As some customers who involved our team later in the process discovered, the initial outlay of external support is dwarfed by the costly delays incurred when you unearth unexpected risks further down the line.

“A mentor of mine once told me ‘you’ll pay for a ground investigation whether you like it or not’, and that still rings true,” Andy explains.

“When it comes to brownfield land and the old lives these sites once had, acquiring the most knowledge you can as early as you can is time and money well spent.”

In fact, our Land Quality Service can provide invaluable input even at the earliest points, such as at the desk study or planning stages, long before any ground investigations begin.

“What you get from this can be worth its weight in gold,” Andy says.

“We can provide a good picture of the site and its risk profile, which focuses the mind and allows the subsequent investigations to be targeted efficiently and robustly.

“Our goals are the same as yours: to avoid inefficiencies and to enable site remediation to be as optimal as it can be.”

Can you afford to chance it?

Development on geotechnically challenging land is not only essential to meeting the UK’s ambitious home-building targets. It can also deliver excellent returns on investment when risks are understood early and managed well.

And over his years in the industry, Andy has seen both good and bad examples of land the length and breadth of the country.

“That’s why it’s a no-brainer, in my opinion, to learn as much as you can as early as you are able to,” he explains.

“When you know more about what’s under the surface – and have a Land Quality Service team to prove it – you can reassure stakeholders and streamline the journey to warranty and insurance cover.

“Without our input, your land could still hold risks; it might be compliant with regulations, but there’s a chance it might not be accepted by some insurers, for example”.

With rising labour and material costs, increasing expectations from homebuyers, and the demand to build faster without sacrificing quality, why take unnecessary risks? The sooner you involve our Land Quality Service, the sooner you gain clarity, confidence and control.

Contact our team to discuss your site and learn how early insight can increase your land’s value and lead to better results.