Design Consultancy
Alongside our Site Investigation services, our specialists provide a range of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental design services to support your build. Our integrated Site Investigation and design services fully address the ground related risks, allowing for valued engineering design.
A Ground Investigation designed in accordance with the UK Specification for Ground Investigation ensures the client’s expectations are achieved to the highest quality and within budget. This is the best practice guidelines for designing and delivering high-quality Site Investigations, which ultimately reduces time and cost to construction and clients from unexpected ground conditions and poorly design ground investigation. Our experts are well-versed in this guidance and can provide you with a specification fully endorsed by the Highways Agency, Environment Agency, British Waterways and Network Rail.
Site Due Diligence is often overlooked which can be costly for your project further down the line. A Site Investigation is invaluable, offering a cost-effective solution to investigate the land and highlighting the site constraints, which is particularly important when redeveloping brownfield land. Due Diligence provides buyers/sellers with invaluable information to consider during the negotiation of a sale/purchase of a site.
An effective Earthworks Design is crucial to a successful build. Our geotechnical consultants are experienced in Earthworks Design and Management for public and private sector builds of all shapes and sizes. Through testing, investigation and design, we’ll develop a solution that provides your site with long-lasting stability and ensures your build is safe and strong.
Subsidence can occur when the ground your construction is built on begins to sink. This interferes with the foundation of your project and can be incredibly problematic. Subsidence can be a significant problem, often causing irreversible structural deformation to the home or structure if not dealt with early. Subsidence can be caused by a number of environmental and geological factors which require a detailed investigation and monitoring process. Northpoint is equipped to investigate signs of subsidence in your home or commercial property and carries out a full Subsidence Investigation – complete with solutions.
Health and Safety is always at the forefront of our minds at Northpoint, so ensuring your Working Platform Design is fit for purpose is paramount. The working platform design is carried out in accordance with permanent geotechnical design principals and national guidance. We look at all your planned construction works, machinery, loads and personnel to form a strategy that will keep your assets and staff safe throughout the entire build. Here at Northpoint, Working Platform Design is not just about design, but what comes after – the construction. This is arguably the most critical part for temporary granular platforms. Our experienced engineers provide supervision and support during the installation process, providing peace of mind for the contractor.
All is not lost if your site is found to have weak or vulnerable ground. Our Design Consultants can work with you to find a solution to this problem and develop stable ground for your build. Using a range of solutions, we can add stability to your foundations and combat the issue so your development can go ahead as planned.
Whether a steep slope adjoining your property, through to highway embankments and coastal landforms, we can investigate slope structures and undertake detailed design and modelling. From the surface, it is difficult to establish the condition of a slope. Our investigation process is twofold. Firstly, we assess in detail the soil and groundwater profile through the slope. Our qualified geotechnical specialists will record each layer and identify areas of weakness. Secondly, we use fieldwork data and monitoring information, and process this into our modelling software. The outcome of the investigation and modelling will provide you with an understanding of how the slope is moving or likely to fail in the future. Our technical recommendations will include a remedial methodology to permeant make-safe susceptible slope structures.
First and foremost, geotechnical recommendations for foundations and placement of sub-surface structures need to be safe and based on robust geotechnical design. Our investigations, regardless of the scale and nature of a build, meticulously examine the soils and rocks beneath the land. We assess how groundwater will interact with the ground, and what affect placing a structure onto the ground will have. We incorporate leading software in our settlement design which analyses the ground profile model and testing data. From this, we establish how the ground will settle through time when a load is placed into the earth.
Here at Northpoint, we have many years of experience in designing roads, highways and pavements, and have been heavily involved in forming these structures for local governments across the North of England. Our team will investigate and assess your site then design efficient solutions for your road development project.
Using our state-of-the-art software, we are able to provide a full model to show water movement, levels and flood risk throughout the construction process and following completion. This extensive analysis will satisfy the Environment Agency and other authorities.
If your site is situated in a Flood Zone, you will need to undertake a Flood Risk Assessment. We will help you to demonstrate that your building works will not cause flooding or, if there is a risk of flooding, we will design a solution to combat it. Our experts are experienced in managing all forms of surface water in a build, and we guide you through a strategy that will fully satisfy the Environment Agency, lead local flood authority and statutory providers.
Invasive weed species are a threat to agriculture and other native species of plant and flora. They can also harm farm animals as well as crops. It is crucial that they are contained on your site and you are expected to manage their risk as part of your responsibility as a landowner. We will carry out testing and investigations to determine the weeds’ threat to the environment and surrounding areas. We’ll advise you on appropriate solutions, following guidance from the most recent legislation, manage the risk and provide a full report of the initial issues and how they were handled.
