Recent research showed that UK environmental consultancies grew by 9% in 2008 with a turnover of around £1.46bn. a high proportion of this revenue was created from projects planned within the first half of the year. At the time of the research approximately 50% of UK environmental consultancies reported that monies from contaminated land and site investigation work was down.
The author of the research report ‘Liz Trew’ said: “The survey results confirm that contaminated land and site investigation, currently the biggest single revenue stream for environmental consultancies has taken the biggest hit from the economic downturn out of all the core service areas” with approximately 50% of environmental consultancies experiencing contracting revenues from contaminated land work.
As the financial crisis emerged, contaminated land as the biggest single earner of the industry was reportedly hit the worse as business within this sector virtually ‘ground to a halt, and saw growth in contaminated land projects income slow from 12% in 2007 to 7% in 2008, with forecasts of a decline during 2009. The private development sector has been hit the worst with some public sector work continuing.