Utility assessments

Our infrastructure team undertakes multi-utility (electricity, gas, telecommunications, water supply, sewerage) assessments to help ensure that development layouts are optimised with respect to any utility related easements or constraints, reducing potential delays and problems at later stages in the project and providing certainty regarding the technical deliverability of the proposed development based on service infrastructure. Our team also provides budget cost estimates for service diversions, reinforcements and connections.

We typically provide two levels of utilities assessments:

• Preliminary Assessment: Our preliminary assessments provide an indication of where utility services are located on and within the vicinity of a development site and can highlight any utilities infrastructure related issues at the scheme development phase. Preliminary assessments can help demonstrate the deliverability in support of a site promotion or appraisal process. As part of the assessment we can prepare a consolidated utilities map for the site to help demonstrate how utilities relate to other aspects of a proposed development.

• Detailed Assessment: Our detailed assessments extend the scope of work undertaken in a preliminary assessment to include estimates of the demand for gas, electricity, potable water and foul water from a proposed development (taking into account build-out programmes for larger developments) and the budget cost of supplying a new development with all utilities. We assess the capacity of existing infrastructure and the potential need for infrastructure reinforcement; where potential shortfalls are identified we provide the scope and budget cost of off-site reinforcement/upgrade works.

We are also able to provide odour impact assessments:

• Odour Impact Assessments: Using our network of technical experts and sub-consultants we can also address odour management, typically associated with sewage treatment works. Our odour assessment interventions have significantly increased developable areas for a number of development sites by robustly demonstrating that the actual impact of odour is significantly less than the default 400m ‘cordon sanitaire’ usually imposed by water companies.

Weetwood has extensive experience of undertaking multi-utilities assessments for a broad range of developments. No matter what the nature or scale of the development, our assessments will add value to your development, helping to maximise developable area and potentially delivering significant time and cost savings.