Delta-Simons was retained by National Car Parks Limited (NCP) to undertake intrusive environmental investigations of 23 NCP-owned properties across the UK, which were part of a sale and lease-back agreement. This work followed initial environmental desktop assessments of the sites by WSP acting on behalf of the sites’ purchaser, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Purpose
As a result of WSP’s findings, RBS had set aside a retention against each site considered to have a potential environmental liability, which could only be released following satisfactory investigation, and if necessary remediation, to a standard such that the environmental risk associated with statutory or third party liability from site ownership would be considered low.
Outline / Scope of Works
Our team initially performed a review of the WSP desktop reports, following which and in consideration of the information contained therein, we prioritised the site investigations and designed bespoke scopes of work to assess possible contamination which had the potential to manifest itself as a third party or statutory environmental liability.
The individual scopes of works for the intrusive investigations were prepared and submitted to RBS’s advisors, for their consideration and agreement. All the site investigations were completed within a very tight timescale.
Upon satisfactory completion of site investigation works, and where the identified potential third party or statutory environmental liabilities associated with site ownership was low, our team recommended that the retention sums set against each site be released by RBS to NCP. In one case further quantitative risk assessment, followed by remediation, was required, in order to address soil and groundwater contamination, prior to the release of the retention.
Outcome / Client Benefits
All completed works were sensitively coordinated with the legal advisors for NCP and the environmental advisors for RBS. This successfully enabled the release of all retention sums totalling over £3.75 million to the delight of the client.
