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Writer's pictureDaniel Hamilton-Charlton

What environmental hazards are present at a property you want to buy?

Updated: Dec 23, 2023




Video Transcript:

"Hi, it's Dan here from Property Searches Direct, I do hope this finds you well.


Today I'm going to talk about our Hazard Checker which you can get on our website at propertysearchesdirect.co.uk


Just click on the Hazard Checker Link at the top or indeed the button that’s on our homepage as well.


The Hazard Checker is the freely available postcode checker service so that you can put a postcode in and look at the environmental impact hazards in any given postcode area.


Why would you want to know that?

Well if you're buying a property, you probably want to know what environmental impact it might be subjected to so you can ask pertinent questions of the estate agent or the seller when you're out on a viewing.


The nice thing is this is free to use so every single property you go and view you can pop the postcode in the Hazard Checker and get some answers.


So just to show you how it works and run through some of the examples that will presented to you let me put a postcode in.


So let’s put a Northamptonshire postcode in, and click on submit.

It's that easy.


The system will give it a quick think, look at the data and then come up with some results for you. So Radon Risk; Radon is a risk across a number of counties so that won’t be any surprise in Northamptonshire or Leicestershire or some of the other counties around the area, but if you want to know what radon risk is click on the description and it will give you an overview as to what radon risk might be.


In this postcode area then planning application risk, and I know this property very well cause I used to live there, the fields behind this property have just had a load of houses built on them, so that was a lovely open view now is chimney pots and other houses and garages and what have you.


So this is an active area for further planning applications so that’s what this would mean.


Ground stability, down to soil type, there’s no coal mining but of course mineral extractions in most villages and towns is a real thing and can cause issues, so again in this post code this has been highlighted.


And Energy Risk, Energy talks about historic or proposed energy sites and installations that might be solar, wind, fracking, exploration wells and the like.


The Hazard Checker is not property specific it is postcode specific.

So by putting a postcode in there our system will draw a Polygon around that postcode and then look at the hazards that exist in that postcode area.


Of course if you want something that is property specific then you need to go into our shop look at the environmental reports that are available for you and delve down into the reports that are specific to the answers or rather the questions you want answering.


Put another postcode in here, this should be no surprise. Again I know this property very well indeed, it’s called Riverside Close and of course you would expect fluvial and pluvial to come up, so fluvial of course is the impact of flood risk and that is coming from rivers and pluvial is of course surface water flooding, so flooding the may occur as a result of heavy

rainfall and the like. Planning application risk, ground stability and energy risk.


Let's put in a London postcode, so this is in Brockley SE London so again pluvial so no rivers there but again we might expect surface water flooding, radon, active railways and/or underground transport links, planning application risk, mining risk, ground stability risk and energy risk.


So, very quickly any postcode can be put in there and you can have the potential risks highlighted to you for that postcode area so you can start to ask, as I say, pertinent questions when you’re out viewing a property.


Of course if you want to then know more about the dangers or risks that might be presented to you, by all means either go into our shop and look at the environmental reports specific to the risks that you’re looking at or give us a call or drop us an e-mail and be more than happy to make suggestions based on the postcode that you’re looking at.


I hope that’s useful. You can use it for free, so feel free to fill your boots and use it as often as you like.


As ever we will be coming with more content and stuff useful for home movers in the near future.

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