This September, the Bruton Knowles compensation team led by Bill Simms, reached a major milestone with the 109km stretch of pipeline successfully complete and the vast majority of land handed back to the farmers so that agricultural production can resume.

From the start of the project, known as the South Wales Reinforcement, BK was involved in consultation meetings as well as negotiating hundreds of transactions and land deals running to several million pounds.

During the initial consultation stage in 2005, BK compensation specialist, Bill Simms was invited to be part of a team set up by NGG to hold talks with the key farming and landowning organisations, the Country Land and Business Association and the National Farmers’ Union, in order to agree a minimum bare agricultural land value on which to base the formal offer to be made to landowners.
Subsequently valuers were involved in the full range of pipeline property services, from referencing the route, budgeting the land costs of the project, arranging access for a whole range of surveys (geotechnical, environmental, topographical, archeological), negotiating consent for the pipeline itself and the associated easement payment, dealing with land acquisitions for Above Ground Installations (AGIs), giving planning advice, carrying out photographic conditions of the land and in some cases, condition surveys of buildings, as well as negotiating additional working areas and contractors’ compounds.

The complexity of the project also led to a number of more unusual surveys for which BK were requested to arrange access. These included the monitoring of fish behaviour in the River Wye involving boating equipment and aquatic microphones, as well as arranging access for nocturnal surveys of great crested newts in a number of ponds near the pipeline route.

The project has benefited from the Bruton Knowles bespoke Speedway package, as Bill Simms explains: “With a fast moving project of this magnitude. Fast payments to landowners can be imperative in order to gain access to land when required. In order to facilitate this process with speed and ease, we were able to use our SpeedWay process management system giving
National Grid Gas a huge advantage in gaining access at short notice.” Now that the pipeline is in the ground the Bruton Knowles team is preparing to negotiate claims for compensation from approximately 250 farmers and landowners whose land has been disturbed by the pipeline works.
Reflecting on the involvement of Bruton Knowles, Paul Swinbourne from National Grid Gas commented: “BK demonstrated highly successful and cooperative teamwork involving personnel from all levels of its organisation. The company has clearly shown that it has the broad range of skills and level of professional expertise required to manage a project on this scale.”