[Fen]

I am making raised beds on my daughters garden. Soil is very heavy clay and almost waterlogged.
In the corner of the garden is a heap, about 10 big barrowloads. of soft sand.
Is this likely to be salty and if not will it lighten the soil at all if mixed in with the clay, compost and well rotted pig manure?

[richy]

soft sand isnt granular enough to make any diference to your soil and yes its probably full of contaminants, , personaly i wouldnt use it,sharp sand is good and clean, plenty of compost and pig manuar will do it.

[gremlin]

The sand and gravel used by builders to make mortar or concrete and comes in bags from B&Q etc  isn't salty.  Sea dredged gravel or sand pinched from the seaside will be salty of course however well it is washed, and will probably have bits of shell in it

As richy says, you need an awful lot of sand (of whatever type) or compost to make a difference.  I reckon a 50-50 mixture. 

Perhaps you could try a few mustard and cress seeds first, or whatever is to hand, to see if they grow in the sand.

[Fen]

Thank you both for your advice - I will forget the sand!
Will have to dig and break up the clay, put muck in the bottom and add a couple of bags of cheap compost to  trench and then try and mix it all up with a small Honda Rotavator. (Which just dances about on the surface unless I dig the ground first.
Will do the digging and mixing first,  and then put the scaffold board raised beds on top.