Arbtech Consulting Ltd is a private limited company, Companies House registration number 05678552.
A list of directors is available for inspection at our Registered Office: Charter Court, Well House Barns, Chester Road, Chester, CH4 0DH.
The following terms and conditions of business (“Terms”) give details of the basis upon which we will provide our services and should be read in conjunction with any accompanying correspondence.
They are written in straightforward English so as to be easily understood and mutually transparent with our expectations.
However, in the unlikely event of a disagreement, any dispute or legal issue arising from them will be determined by the law of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh Courts.
Unless otherwise agreed in writing, or unless superseded by a later edition of these Terms, these Terms establish and represent the entire agreement between us and supersede any previous or other agreement and shall apply without variation to all present and any future instructions given to us by you.
These Terms and any documents referred to in them are made for the benefit of the parties to them and their successors and permitted assigns, and are not intended to benefit, or be enforceable by, anyone else.
The rights and obligations of the parties shall continue for the benefit of and shall be binding upon their respective successors and assigns.
We shall not be in breach of these Terms nor liable for delay in performing, or failure to perform, any of our obligations under these Terms if such delay or failure results from events, circumstances or cases beyond our reasonable control.
Nothing in these Terms is intended to, or shall be deemed to, establish any partnership or joint venture between any of the parties, constitute any party the agent of another party, or authorize any party to make or enter into any commitments for or on behalf of any other party.
For the avoidance of doubt, your registration will amount to your acceptance of these Terms.
We are registered for Value Added Tax (“VAT”), registration number GB 903660148.
All of our fees and expenses (“Fees”) are quoted exclusive of VAT.
Our fees are calculated mainly by reference to the amount of time actually spent by our consultants and other staff delivering the course, and any associated expenses and disbursements.
The 5-day course is priced at £250+VAT. This works out at £50+VAT per day for probably the highest impact CPD course you will embark on in your entire career.
Your travel and accommodation costs (if any) for attending the course are borne entirely by you.
We offer two methods of payment for ASSET.
1 – Pay in Full
If you elect to pay the course fees in full, on registration you will be given an invoice for £250+VAT.
We accept payment by cheque, bank transfer and all major credit or debit cards.
2 – Fees Offset Scheme (“FOS”)
If you elect to take advantage of our FOS, on registration you will be given an invoice for £250+VAT.
This invoice will remain current during the term of the course. Then, ideally during the course, but certainly with within 30 days of it finishing, you need to accomplish two tasks:
Thereafter, we will issue you a credit note for the full £250+VAT course fee.
If you wish to take advantage of the FOS, you will need to be pro-active in maintaining contact with our consultants (some of whom you will meet during your time on ASSET) in order to stay abreast of what surveys are upcoming, and ultimately, to get the necessary opportunities you need to be signed off as competent to assist on surveys and start paid work to offset (re pay) your course Fees.
Once you course fees are paid off, after you have assisted on 5 (five) bat detector surveys (or a pre-agreed equivalent survey type), you are free of any commitments, although of course, we would love you to continue doing paid work for Arbtech.
We require payment in full prior to accepting a registration from or on behalf of overseas delegates, defined as a person that is legally domiciled, works or lives outside of the U.K.
Invoices shall not be re-assigned without the prior written consent of a director of Arbtech Consulting Ltd.
We are entitled to charge you interest on the amount of our invoice until the date of payment, if payment of the invoice is not made within 30 days of your invoice tax date. Interest is charged at 8% over the HSBC Bank PLC base lending rate from time to time in force.
You are liable for any costs (including but not limited to interest; compensation; our fees; disbursements) involved in recovering outstanding fees including those levied by us in accordance with The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 as amended and those levied by third parties including but not limited to Debt Collectors, Solicitors and the Courts.
Receipt of your payment does not constitute our acceptance of your registration and we reserve the right to return your payment and decline to accept your registration.
We do not accept payment by instalments unless a director of Arbtech Consulting Ltd has agreed this at the outset in writing.
The title to our intellectual property and copyright covering all content delivered by us (whether hard copy or digital media) remains in our ownership and can be subject to withdrawal from either public or private domain at any time. The continued use of our intellectual property by any party following withdrawal shall be considered a breach of the Terms and copyright.
Unless we have agreed otherwise in writing, a full refund of any fees paid will be issued if we receive written confirmation of your cancellation within 15 business days of the published course start date.
Because of the cost of delivering ASSET, which is projected to run at breakeven so as to offer graduates the cheapest possible entry into paid work in the industry, we cannot offer full or part refunds under any other circumstance, for example: if you cancel with less than 15 business days’ notice; pull out of the course part-way through; or in the case of the FOS, fail to complete the shadowing and offset work set out in the payment clause, above (list is not exhaustive).
For probity: failure to complete the mandatory elements of the course, the shadowing and your offset work if you elected for the FOS as your method of payment (see “PAYMENT”, above) will require you pay the course fees of £250+VAT in full on the due date of the invoice, which will be 30 days after the published course finish date.
Before the course begins and between modules, you will be given a pre-reading list of books (or chapters thereof) and other resources designed give you a solid theoretical grounding in a broad variety of subjects related to ecological consultancy.
Throughout the course, you will also be given group and individual homework assignments to solidify and develop the skills you have built in each module.
While not strictly necessary to pass the course, these pre-readings and homework assignments will be invaluable in accelerating your learning and thus accelerating the rate at which you can begin paid work.
To undertake some of the pre-reading and homework assignments you will require Internet and or library access, and a computer or laptop capable of running the QGIS software (which is freely accessible here: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/).
If you are a “Consumer” (as defined by regulation 4 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (“Regulations”)), the following conditions apply to your registration on the course.
These Terms have been entered into as a “Distance Contract” (as defined by regulation 5 of the Regulations) and under normal circumstances, you have a right to cancel your instructions within 14 days of instructing us.
Such cancellation must be made in writing to us. A model cancellation form can be provided to you, though you are not obliged to use it.
If you are a Consumer and cancel in accordance with this clause, we will reimburse any payments received from you, unless you have supplied us with your “Express Request” (as defined by regulation 36 of the Regulations)
For the avoidance of doubt, an Express Request is defined as registering for the course within 15 business days of the published start date.
It is our aim to offer you a friendly and useful course at all times and we hope that you will be pleased with the course. However, if there is any part of our service you are not happy with, please raise your concern in the first instance with the person you are dealing with. We aim to rectify the occasional mistake promptly and at no charge to you. Along with a sincere apology, this action is generally sufficient to satisfy our clients, both domestic and professional. If you still have queries or concerns, please ask the person you are dealing with to escalate your complaint through our formal Complaints Handling Procedure.
We will use the information you supply primarily to provide you with our services and for related purposes including: updating and enhancing client records; management and analysis of our company and its performance; statutory returns; legal and regulatory compliance. Our use of this information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998, General Data Protection Regulations 2016, and our duty of confidentiality. We may sometimes have to give your information to third parties such as your other professional advisors, local authorities and public bodies. You have a right of access to the data we hold about you.
We maintain adequate professional indemnity insurance policies at all times, however, in no circumstances whatsoever, including negligence, shall we be liable to you or any other third party for indirect or consequential loss of revenue, profit or business opportunity (list is not exhaustive).
You acknowledge and accept that the course fees do not contain a sufficient premium to cover the risk of our unlimited liability and that a limit of liability is therefore reasonable in any and every circumstance or eventuality.
Without prejudice to the remainder of this clause, our absolute maximum liability will be limited to an aggregate equivalent to no more than four times the course fees, or up to a maximum of one thousand Pounds Sterling, whichever is less. We have no further liability to you or any other third party in connection with the course. You agree not to pursue any claim, issue or other legal proceedings against any individual including shareholders, directors and employees of Arbtech Consulting Ltd for any reason.
We will not be liable to you for any reason, for any losses, damages, costs or expenses (“Losses”) if such Losses are due to the provision of false, misleading or incomplete information or documentation, or due to the acts or omissions of any person other than a member of permanently employed staff at Arbtech Consulting Ltd.
We will not be liable to you for any loss of revenue or profit whether potential or realised, or any potential or realised foregone economic or business opportunity, for any reason.
While working on site for us you will be covered under our professional indemnity insurance. Details of our professional indemnity insurance cover and provider are available upon request.
By submitting or forwarding any report, survey or other work you have produced using information or templates provided as part of the course to any third party (including but not limited to clients and local planning authorities) and thereby using it for its intended purpose, you are deemed to have accepted the quality of such work and shall not be entitled to any set-off or refund.
We will not be liable for any delays in performance caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control and will be entitled to a time extension for such performance.
We may subcontract some or all of our obligations (such as the course hosting venue) to a competent third party.
We do not provide paper and other physical or hard digital media copies of our work or communications unless otherwise stated explicitly in our quotation at the outset. All works and communications will be electronic for speed and environmental sensitivity.
The course is delivered in English only.