The sandy ground conditions along the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea may be ideal for holidaymakers - but not so ideal for major construction work. As a result Abbey Pynford, the specialist ground engineering solutions company, is spending a few weeks by the sea bringing its extensive piling experience to resolving a few issues for Cardy Construction. Cardy is constructing a new landmark development on this prime seafront location, consisting of 24 high specification two and three bed designer apartments, and the foundation work is challenging.

Housedeck, an innovative foundation system from ground engineering specialists Abbey Pynford, was in demand recently at a development near Kingston in Surrey, where three large houses are being built on a difficult plot that not only has a rising 45 degree slope from front to back, but at the highest point is surrounded by badger setts. Under the Protection of Badgers Act the setts must not be damaged at any time, or disturbed when a badger is in occupation.

With land becoming more and more scarce, difficult and challenging sites are inevitably on the increase. One recent example of a sensitive environment - involving the preservation of a number of mature trees - was on a 900 square metre plot at Woking, in Surrey. A residential development, by Windsor Homes, of five large detached houses in Pembroke Road, where tree roots were rampant across the site...

Whatever the government forecast adjustment for the number of new homes required by 2018 might be - and at the moment it is around four million - there is still going to a great deal of land area consumed. If, environmentally, green belt areas and prime sites are to be avoided wherever possible, this inevitably means building on increasingly difficult ground conditions.