Housing expert wary of building on landfill or flood plane sites

Published 06th Jul 2007

With the UK suffering a series of torrential downpours and severe flooding conditions recently, one housing expert has moved to question developers choosing to building on flood prone areas

David Snell, a consultant at BuildStore and author of the book 'Building Your Own Home', suggested that building on flood planes and landfill sites was 'technically' a possibility.

But he added that there wasn't necessarily money to be made by developing landfill sites.

"It depends on the landfill: what the land's actually been filled with," he said. "Technically it's possible to build on landfill sites as long as you vent the buildings for methane gas – a bit like when you build where there's naturally occurring radon gas.

"The developer has to think of the market – if people know it's a landfill site, then you may not get very many people queuing up to buy… Just because it's technically possible doesn't mean that the market will accept it."

He also revealed it was very, very difficult to get insurance for properties located on flood plane sites, adding that he didn't think a wise developer would build on an area prone to flooding.

Source: ' What Mortgage '

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