Construction Checklist

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Landscape & Ecosystems

Respect sensitive areas of the site

Refer back to original ecological, landscape and hydrological surveys of the site to ensure construction team have basic understanding of areas of particular sensitivity.

In conjunction with the construction team, put in place voluntary cordons sanitaire and 'no impact zones' across the site to protect those highest value landscape and ecological features.

Adopt a sensitive, gradual and flexible approach to site clearance, seeking to:

  • Minimize the extent of working / disturbed area
  • Limit the clearance of all areas of natural vegetation
  • Retain /incorporate natural areas as golfing hazards where possible
  • Work outwards in phases from golf hole centrelines
  • Take down individual trees in sections if necessary to avoid damage to adjacent trees/canopy

Create opportunities for habitat enhancement

In conjunction with specialists, translocate suitable species / individual specimens and/or areas of valuable vegetation to other parts of site

Seek to refine vegetation cover, in order to maximise the landscape ecology of the site. Take last minute opportunities to connect habitat patches, to retain and create corridors between habitats, to maximise the overall size and connectivity of habitat on the site.

Seek new small scale opportunities for previously unidentified or unplanned habitat niches:

  • Let tee drainage discharge into localised soakaways, swales and reedbeds.
  • Scrape areas slightly lower than planned to create vegetated but seasonally flooding depressions and wet, marshy grasslands.
  • Elevate other areas and cap with free draining material to create dry and parched grassy knolls where droughty finer herbs and rosette forming plants can thrive.
  • Stack unsold timber and bury tree roots in shady corners and woodland edges to create hybernaculum and nesting / breeding sites for small mammals.

Minimize impacts on biodiversity

Phase the construction programme as far as possible to avoid impacts on biodiversity, e.g. on nesting birds through the noise and vibration of heavy machinery

Reinstate the compound area and other damaged parts of the site on completion of the works, taking opportunities to bring an elevated ecological value to the site. Such ecological restoration projects are an important aspect of mitigating direct construction impacts.

Seek last minute opportunities to incorporate historical and cultural features into the development e.g. re-assessing the exact positioning of walls, ha-ha's, etc in relation to play and exploring ways for their fuller integration.

On the Ground: Celtic Manor Resort, Wales, United Kingdom. Design by European Golf Design (Ross McMurray).

Water

See also the closely related section on protecting and enhancing Environmental Quality.

  • Seek further late stage opportunities to minimise the amount of irrigated amenity grassland. These often become most apparent as the grassing plan becomes visualised during late construction and the lead into grow in.
  • In conjunction with the irrigation engineers and drainage contractor, take opportunities for late stage refinements of both the irrigation and drainage plans - seeking opportunities to harvest additional runoff, and ensuring irrigation is targeted tightly to the final grassing plan.
  • Ensure ecological design is faithfully and accurately delivered during pond, wetland and water course construction. Build in varied depths, shallow 'littoral' shelves, gentry graded and convoluted edges etc.
  • Seek late stage opportunities to replace or integrate piped drainage with swales, ditches and seasonal and permanent attenuation ponds and soakaways.
  • Protect existing water bodies and water courses using physical barriers and fences, bio-filters and no-spray zones.

Energy & Resources

  • Explore opportunities to introduce cleaner, renewable fuels into the supply for haulage and on site machinery - e.g. second generation biofuels.
  • Select the latest generation of temporary power generators, and look to second generation biofuels and LPG powered options.
  • Use low sulphur diesel oil in all vehicle and equipment engines, and incorporate the latest specifications of particulate filters and catalytic converters.
  • Look for transportation alternatives for all materials being brought to site - e.g. rail and boat / barge.
  • Carefully plan construction logistics in order to reduce fuel consumption - particularly in the phasing of on site operations and a throughfocus on doing things right first time round.
  • Minimise the overall amount of fuel and energy use by minimsing the amount of physical landscape change and seeking late stage opportunities to integrate existing landform.

On the Ground: Hunting Hawk Golf Club, Virginia, United States. Design by W.R. Love, Golf Course Architecture.

Products & Supply Chains

  • Select the right greens construction method and specification as appropriate to the location (site, climate, microclimates, business model, resource availability, legislation etc). Bear in mind the need to ensure that long-term maintenance requirements can be met.
  • Using agronomic advice, seek to use a peat substitute (e.g. coir) for organic component of rootzone. Ideally, source, or produce, a local compost based product.
  • Seek to minimise the importation of bulky construction materials by utlising as many existing on site resources, including recycled aggregates from demolished buildings, crushed rock and quarried sands, gravels and soils and timber.
  • Make it a policy to use as many products with recycled content as possible. These could be:
  • recycled sands and gravels from other local industrial processes;
  • demolition waste such as crushed brick and concrete;
  • irrigation and drainage pipework made from recycled plastics;
  • geotextile membranes derived from recycled plastics;
  • coir matting and rolls for bank and bund construction - that utilise a waste product from another agricultural or industrial process;
  • wood-chip derived from pallets and other waste wood, rather than from extracted timber;
  • recycled and reprocessed glass sands
  • recycled brick, slate, tiles, paving, cobbles and other finishing materials for buildings and landscapes
  • Use non-toxic paints, solvents and other hazardous materials wherever possible.
  • As well as looking for the most drought tolerant options, source plants, shrubs and flowers locally to ensure best adaptability to climate.

Environmental Quality

Protect soils by:

  • Handling soil when conditions are suitable and soil is dry and friable.
  • Using plant expressly designed for purpose eg D5 Dozer.
  • Varying depth of strip to reflect local soil conditions.
  • Stripping only true topsoil and maintaining integrity of subsoil.
  • Minimising the length of topsoil storage periods.
  • Stockpiling soil in the right way - i.e not in overly large mounds.
  • Using erosion control fences, temporary ditches and other measures to reduce soil loss.
  • Avoiding cultivation operations in very dry / windy conditions.
  • Planning haul routes to coincide with permanent roadways where feasible. Avoid fairways, wet areas and environmentally sensitive areas.
  • Minimising the quantity of steep slopes that are vulnerable to erosion.
  • Ensuring all critical pollution prevention measures are designed into the temporary (or permanent) maintenance facility.

Protect air by:

  • Carefully planning construction logistics in order to reduce noise levels.
  • Utilising the most modern machinery, with best fuel efficiency and lowest noise operating levels.
  • Introducing cleaner, renewable and less greenhouse gas emitting fuels into the supply for haulage and on site machinery - e.g. second generation biofuels.
  • Having a strategy for dust minimisation and management, which identifies high dust operations and influencing climatic factors such as humidity, rainfall and wind.
  • Avoiding chemical products that have high volatilisation rates.
  • Site access roads should be regularly brushed or scraped.
  • Using fine sprays to dampen down the site at times of highest risk .
  • Screening the whole site to stop dust spreading, or alternatively, place fine mesh screening close to the dust source.
  • Adopt a policy of no, or minimal, on site burning.., Instead chip and mulch cleared vegetation into grades of material for re-use as mulches, landscape coverings, path materials and growing media.

Protect water by:

  • Use of silt fences and sediment traps.
  • Minimise the amount of exposed ground and stockpiles, and seed over or cover.
  • Phase construction as much as possible to minimise the amount of surface area at any one point in time that is un-vegetated, helping to prevent erosion and siltation particularly in monsoon and other intense rainfall areas, and on sloping and fine soiled sites.
  • Ensuring spillage response strategies and materials are in place.
  • Seeking alternatives to herbicide based vegetation clearance, such as weed burners.
  • Ensuring all critical pollution prevention measures are designed into the temporary (or permanent) maintenance facility.
  • Careful application (types, timings and rates) of fertilisers, to avoid both leachate and runoff. Leachate of nitrogen is particularly a higher risk during the construction phase, as it is applied onto open ground or an unestablished sward.
  • Strict application of buffer zones and no spray / treatment areas around watercourses, wetlands, reed-beds, ditches, marshy grasslands etc.
  • Avoid pumping any water containing silt into other water bodies.
  • Where possible prevent water from entering excavation areas, using cut-off ditches.
  • Wheel and plants washing facilities should be secure and wash water should be contained for treatment, disposal and/or re-use.
  • Storage tanks for fuels, oils, and chemicals to be sited on impervious base within a containment or embankment.
  • Covering car parks, paths and other surfaces in permeable materials to allow slow, diffuse percolation of rainwater and surface runoff. Also reduces concentrations of particulates and heavy metals, rubbers and plastics into water courses.

People & Communities

  • Make a plan (and keep a record of) all the locally sourced resources you can utilise - from people to products. This will help you communicate important aspects of the local social and economic multipliers of the project.
  • Create vacancies for education and training activities during construction, partnering with local schools, colleges and universities to provide vocational insight into diverse technical skills (e.g. use of machinery, irrigation, drainage, agronomy, conservation, enginneering, buildings construction, energy and water engineering etc.)
  • Hold an official open day, when members of the local community can come onto site and view the construction operations. Even better if you have some interesting features and achievements to present to them - which also shows off you stewardship of the site.
  • Work up your traffic plan with input from local people. Strive to find a programme of machinery and materials delivery that minimises impacts on local people. Phasing deliveries and avoiding specified times, along with creating customised delivery routes into the site will all assist in reducing noise, dust and other anti-social aspects of construction.
  • Prefer a local contractor - bear in mind that every dollar spent in the local community has a better chance of recycling back to your business!
  • Take the opportunity to connect your construction teams activities with professional qualifications through on the job training and certification programmes.
  • Undertake construction focused economic impact analysis so that you can communicate the short term and immediate financial value of the development to local people.