A survey of British Sugar TOPSOIL’s manufacturing facilities at Bury St Edmunds, Cantley, Newark and Wissington has confirmed that all four production sites are free of the problem species Japanese knotweed and horsetail, removing any risk of contamination of its topsoil products.
Once established, these plants are extremely difficult to eradicate and topsoil-containing spores, tubers or the smallest section of rhizome from the two plants is compromised and will import the problem to the site for which the soil is destined. Moving soil contaminated with Japanese knotweed, other than to a disposal site authorised to deal with it, can result in prosecution.
British Sugar TOPSOIL is the UK’s largest supplier of topsoil to the construction, landscaping and amenity sectors and its product ‘Landscape20’ recently won ‘External Product of the Year’ at the Housebuilder Product Awards 2015. The absolute integrity of its products, therefore, is of paramount importance to British Sugar TOPSOIL, which is why the company commissions soil and landscape consultancy, Tim O’Hare Associates LLP, to carry out the bi-annual survey.
Soil ponds, drying lagoons, and conditioning, screening and storage areas were all closely inspected in July this year at the height of the growing season and it was confirmed that ‘At the time of [the] surveys, no stands of Japanese knotweed or areas of horsetail were observed at any of the sites inspected.’
For information on TOPSOIL products, visit www.bstopsoil.co.uk.
