Helping Renew Local Communities Via Land Restoration in Rochester | Shaw Haulage
Did you know that over 400,000 hectares of land across Britain is contaminated? This is largely due to the history of industrialisation, which saw the UK one the earliest and most fanatical adopters of the industrial mode of production. So a lot of this land, including sites that have sat or still sit within Rochester and wider Kent, cannot be developed until it is made safe to do so. Shaw Haulage, aggregate suppliers and grab hire / muckaway providers for the area, can help through the management of land restoration.
On this page, we’ve looked to provide some more information about this side of our work, while explaining how land restoration, grab hire, muckaway and aggregate supply complement each other. Stumbled across this page in search of a quote for the aforementioned work, carried out in or nearby the Rochester area? Then call us directly on 01795 420606.
Land Restoration & Brownfield Sites – Essential Information
What does the term “Brownfield” refer to?
Once the sites of industrial or commercial activity, brownfield sites now stand derelict. Due to lack of care and maintenance, or conditions brought about by the activity originally carried out on them, they are now fairly hostile to human, animal or plant life. They may also be structurally unsound, or suffer with drainage difficulties.
How is land restoration carried out?
It’s usually a bespoke, multi-phase job that sees the involvement of local authorities – e.g Rochester’s planning board. Typically, muckaway will look to carefully rid the land of all waste products. Our aggregate suppliers will then choose materials that can be incorporated to fill in voids, create a more stable ground, or otherwise re-purpose the land. In both the aforementioned stages, our fleet of grab hire vehicles are totally indispensable.
What challenges do Brownfield sites represent?
Infrastructural and organisational challenges, such as the transportation of large amounts of waste and aggregate for the re-purposing itself; more subtly – ecological challenges. Topographical surveys and risk assessments must be carried out to identify flora and fauna surrounding the site, while considering the types that will need to be re-introduced. This makes land restoration far more complex and nuanced than simply muckaway and aggregate supply via grab hire, however important those stages are.
Why subject Brownfield sites to land restoration?
Reasons often cited by our Rochester clients include the fact that Brownfield land is a) a blight on the local surroundings, b) a waste of potential in an age where land is a diminishing return. Land restoration can deliver wild spaces full of a diverse range of trees, plants and animals, community centres or parks that locals can enjoy, or even space for residential or commercial buildings that will provide housing or jobs for the community.
How do your services complement each other in regards to land restoration?
While carrying out muckaway around Rochester, we gather many materials that we screen and process to create carefully sorted aggregate blends. These can then be employed during the course of land restoration, to replace contaminated soils or fill in holes, for example. Grab hire is used by both our muckaway team and aggregate suppliers for transportation, and the vehicles are also instrumental in some of the heavy work itself – as the mechanical arm can reduce labour time and prevent injury due to repetitive strain, etc.