For many years it has been recognised that there are no available standard conditions, internationally or in the UK, for ground or site investigation. Neither the FIDIC nor the ICE Civil Engineering standard contracts are suitable, principally because their frameworks are such as to achieve a permanent physical result on a given site. Since 1968, there has been a growing body of opinion that there was a need and a place for standard conditions for ground investigation. In 1968 the National Economic Development Office committee, chaired by Sir William Harris, recommended that such conditions should be drawn up.1 After five years of investigation and consultation, the joint drafting committee of the British Institution of Civil Engineers, set up in July 1978, has provided such conditions. The “Conditions of Contract for Use in Connection with Ground Investigation” (First Edition) have been published (October 1983).2

As the law relating to building and structural defects develops, rapidly in the case of many common law jurisdictions, the need for site investigation has been recognised as an adjunct to the exercise by developer and designer of their duty of care. The desirability of site investigation applies as much to engineering as to building projects. The English Court of Appeal decision of Raymond Batty and Another v Metropolitan Property Realisations Ltd and Others 3 emphasises the relevance of site investigation in commonplace building development: developers and builders inspected a site immediately above a slope which superficially appeared satisfactory for the construction of a dwelling; a less cursory investigation would have revealed that the site was subject to land slip; the house was properly built for the assumed conditions; the site began to slip downwards; the developer and builder were held liable in negligence (inter alia) for failing to carry out a proper site investigation; Megaw LJ stated: