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Insurance-Backed Guarantees (IBGs) are a fact of life within the Japanese knotweed industry and have been for several years. They are as much a feature of the conveyancing process as the plethora of other indemnities available to mitigate against every little issue that ever marred the balance sheet of a mortgage lender.

Have you noticed a continued slipping of standards in pretty much every service industry? From restaurants to garages from hotels to delivery services …it’s like everybody’s forgotten how to look after their customers.

In life, I am a great advocate for having a fair playing field for everyone.

In the coming week, we will be sending out an INNSA Member Survey and we would love to get as many responses as possible, to help us understand how the association can best serve the interests of its members.

But, as Chairman, I feel particularly strongly that we need to focus on the industry issues which directly affect our members on a day-to-day basis and on their bottom line.

So, contractors, how do you explain “Invasive Alien Species” to your clients?

It can all sound a bit like the X-Files when talking of ‘aliens’ taking over the land… Do you go down the route of explaining about the ease with which the plants are spread? Or go down the “Need-for-biodiversity” route? Or do you just tell them “It’s the law…”?

Most people understand about the problems with Japanese knotweed – but they tend not to understand why the plant is on their land, where it has come from and how it got there.