Underpinning in Beresfield
The state's soil-landscape report for the Beresfield unit, which names Beresfield among its examples, rates its foundation hazard generally high because of moderate to high shrink-swell subsoils, and council's acid sulfate table may require a management plan for works more than 1 metre below the natural ground surface on Class 3 land.
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Underpinning around Beresfield
We asked the state's district layer, its soil-landscape map and the planning portal's acid sulfate layer what they return at five points across Beresfield. The soil map returned the Beresfield unit at three points and the Cockle Creek and Hexham Swamp units at one each, the acid sulfate layer returned Class 3 at three points and Class 5 at two, and the district layer returned no district at any point. The report for the Beresfield unit describes it as undulating low hills and rises, including Beresfield and East Maitland, and says its foundation hazard is generally high due to moderate to high shrink-swell (reactive) and highly plastic subsoils.
That is a report about a mapped unit across a landscape, and three of five points is not the suburb. It does not say any Beresfield house has moved. It gives a provider a question to ask early: what an investigation of this lot shows.
Permits and City of Newcastle rules
City of Newcastle's acid sulfate soils table lists, for Class 3 land, works more than 1 metre below the natural ground surface, and works by which the water table is likely to be lowered more than 1 metre, as works which may require a management plan or a preliminary assessment before development consent is issued. Council defines works to include the construction of footings or erection foundations. The plan's section C5 defers the thresholds to clause 6.1 of Newcastle Local Environmental Plan 2012, which we could not read, so this is the council's own restatement and not the clause. The class of a given lot is on the plan's acid sulfate soils map, and the council or a certifier can say whether a footing job is one of these works.
Source: City of Newcastle, Acid Sulfate Soils page (council restatement of clause 6.1; the clause itself was not read); City of Newcastle DCP 2023 section C5 Soil management; NSW soil landscape unit reports, Beresfield and Hexham Swamp; read 25 September 2026. — confirm current requirements with City of Newcastle.
Our Beresfield service area
An enquiry from Beresfield is passed on to an independent provider, who gets in touch to look at the house.
See all Underpinning in Newcastle. We also work in Maryland, Fletcher and Shortland, among the other suburbs we list.
Call (02) 9072 0403Last reviewed · Updated · First published