Uncovering Unexploded Ordnance

Today we woke up to reports of a huge unexploded World War II bomb being identified at a building site in Southwark, south London.

With households within the vicinity evacuated while the Army manages the safe removal of the device, it highlights the importance of undertaking Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) assessments at the outset of any building development works, as the probability of identifying UXO originating from the Second World War might not be as uncommon as you think.  

According to the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA), between 2006 and 2009, approximately 15,000 devices were removed from construction sites – of which 5% were live.

Add to this, it has been reported that during WWII over 17,000 tonnes of explosive fell on London alone, with figures suggesting that approximately 10% did not detonate on impact. 

Site Assessments:

Help is available to the construction industry: the first port of call is a desktop tool called a Preliminary UXO Risk Assessment. It quickly provides a 'yes/no' answer as to whether there is any risk of encountering a bomb. It has been developed in line with guidance from CIRIA and endorsed by the Health and Safety Executive.

If a positive ‘yes’ output is identified, the next stage of assessment is to conduct a Detailed UXO Risk Assessment. This will detail the type of threat, the size, origin and also takes into account the proposed construction method and how that would impact on risk of detonation.  Risk mitigation measures are then provided to allow construction to proceed.

The ‘Bomb Search’ assessments are available from Envirocheck, part of Landmark Information Group, and are provided by renowned experts in the field of UXO, 6 Alpha Associates.

Talking about the potential risks, Simon Cooke, Managing Director at 6 Alpha Associates, in partnership with Landmark Information Group, said:

“Encountering an unexploded bomb on a construction site is a low probability but extremely high consequence event, particularly when you take into account potential loss of life. Not to mention shock waves which could spread underground for some distance, causing damage to foundations and other underground works.   As we see it, it is the potential consequence, rather than the probability, which really drives the importance of undertaking detailed risk assessments before any work starts.”

Ultimately, at the start of any new ground works project, the first stage Preliminary search is a must. While the potential risk may be considered small, it is clear it should not be overlooked for the ultimate safety of all concerned.

More details regarding Envirocheck Bomb Search can be found here:

• http://www.envirocheck.co.uk/products/environmental/bomb_search/

More details regarding 6 Alpha can be found here:

• http://www.6alpha.com/

Related News Link:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32023201

Recycling old football pitches

In honour of the 2014 World Cup final, BBC’s Countryfile team recently met the locals who have turned the old Swansea football pitch, Vetch Field, into a haven of growing and community spirit.

A year long project that started in September 2011, commissioned by Adain Avion, Cultural Olympiad Wales, Vetch Field was a defunct sports and music venue has been converted into a community garden/allotment. 

Over 100 Beds fill the 2,500 metre sq. site, where members of the community, families, organisations, churches, retirement centres and charities can grow their own food. The site also contains a kitchen, numerous communal beds and polytunnels. The gardeners care for the site, learn bee keeping, and cob oven building skills as well as keeping chickens and preparing food in the kitchen.

The garden has become a centre of community, where cultures, neighbours and families meet and tend their plots, swap recipes and share meals.

As part of our DMGT Green Week, we took this opportunity to look into our data. Did you know…

• We hold over 300 planning application features relating to the development of allotments
• Our local plan data identifies over 2,100 land allocations for allotments, existing and proposed
• OS Mastermaps identify almost 18,000 allotments across Great Britain
• Our Points of Interest Data shows:
• Over 2,500 points of interest that detail horticultural services
• Over 7,800 points of interest that detail gardening, landscaping and tree surgery services
• Over 1,800 community projects and networks

Investing in Local Communities: How Landmark’s Promap supports Gentoo

Promap Testimonial:

Gentoo is made up of a group of companies that include divisions operating in care and support services; construction; design, build and maintenance; environmental sustainability; solar panels and specialist glass; and property rental and sales.

Its overall ambition is to improve the lives of the people, communities and the environment in which it operates. This is achieved by investing in people, the planet and property, in what it is calling ‘the Art of Living’.   As a ‘profit for purpose’ organisation, Gentoo uses any profits from its commercial activity to reinvest back in towards achieving this.

In 2011, Gentoo Group reached its tenth anniversary. During this time it has invested over £500 million into homes and communities.   In the same year, almost 10 per cent of new homes in the north east region were built by Gentoo, and in Sunderland it accounted for 66 per cent of them.

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Bill Fairley, Architectural Technologist at Gentoo:

“As a Group we are continuing to invest in the local community, which includes the creation of new affordable housing schemes in and around Sunderland and the North East region.

As part of our development and investment plans, it is important for us to be able to precisely plot parcels of land that we are looking to buy.  By doing so, it is then possible to develop accurate architectural schemes that are used for the planning and development process.

We rely on Landmark’s Promap service to access all the maps we need.  The process is simple.  

Via Promap it is quick to identify the area of land in question. Once highlighted, we can order the Ordnance Survey MasterMap that we want and in lots of varying formats.  We typically work in DXF or DWG format and, once selected, the map is downloaded from Promap and ready for immediate use."

"The Promap site is very simple to use and gives us everything we need to create the first stage architectural schemes for our planning applications, as well as land registration purposes.”

Landmark’s data team solve latest OS mapping mystery

Celia Craven, a key part of Landmark’s data team, recently solved a mystery surrounding an unrecognised symbol on an OS map, alerted to us by one of our clients.  The symbol (※) seemed to have no objective reference in historic map legends and subsequent googling only lead to more misinformation. 

It seemed like there would be no resolution…until Celia got her hands on the mapping.

The mapping in the area is derived, as Mr Peter Hobby from Ordnance Survey informed Landmark, from multiple map sheets. Using this information, combined with the indication that these are hand-drawn annotations, Celia was able to analyse the area logically to and determined the potential nature of the symbol. The addition of line features to distinguish map sheets from one another was also useful in this instance, both as a visual aid and a significant clue.

If we consider the nature of surveying and the methods applied to this process (historically at least) we can hazard an informed guess that the symbols are indicators of field area values where only partial elements of the field were available to the surveyor.

An example of this is depicted below – the coloured partial field object contains the mystery symbol. The line cutting through the map indicates the boundary of a map-sheet.

The red polygon and the symbol (with associated value) conform to the measure of the field only as it’s depicted on the southernmost map-sheet.  Perhaps the surveyor at the time was not able to measure the full extent of the field and was only able to capture the extent of the field as it appeared on their map? We can’t say for certain - that’s just speculation on our behalf.

The northernmost map-sheet and its acreage value (2.971) is for the entire field. The shaded area value (1.198) is for only the field area available on the map-sheet.  Applying this logic to the other areas divided by the map-sheet line is also true.

The original query map corroborates this finding as it’s divided by four map-sheet divisions.  Here we can see a total field measure (3.914 acres) and the partial values in each map-sheet.

The south-western map sheet (from 1918) shows .388 and .128.

The south-eastern map sheet (from 1919) shows a total of 4.112 and a partial value of 2.728.

The north-western and north-eastern maps sheets were surveyed at the same time  (1923) so depict the same value of 3.914.

We can’t say for certain, but it seems the symbol represents a marker for a partial field measure.

Whilst some of us were excited at the prospect of X marking the spot Celia provided the balance of intelligence and logic that resolved the mystery. Whilst there is no buried treasure (seemingly) this minor revelation does indicate something previously hidden to us in the present, the ingenuity and diligence of mapping surveyors and the real-world work carried out by Ordnance Survey and their team of experts. These symbols were marked on maps by an individual, or group of individuals and the results of their work are still visible to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

At Landmark, we live and breathe data 24/7 – it’s our DNA after all. If you have any mysteries you need help solving, please contact one of the data team via askdata@landmarkinfo.co.uk.

Daniel Lewis-Carter

Data Information Co-Ordinator
Landmark Information Group