Sunshine Saturday: Farming at Landmark

It turns out that only having five days in DMGT Green Week is just not enough so we had to create an extra day called Sunshine Saturday where we can take a look at the Farmers in our group - the Product Managers.

There are many dimensions to the life of our Farmer: the first of which is the shepherd. Like many organisations we have a flock of existing products out there in the field; some of them are young and need to be watched over to ensure they don't get into difficulties and some are older and may be in need of TLC. The shepherd's job is to keep an eye on all the livestock; protected from extreme weather and keep safe from predators. Our existing products need a looking after too to ensure they are kept healthy and ahead of the competition.

As well as looking after existing animals, farmers also need to ensure that future demand can be met. This involves sowing the seeds of next year's crops; nurturing them to ensure that they are properly watered, kept free from weeds and pests and given adequate nutrition. Product Managers have a similar job to ensure that we have new products that may start off as unpromising seedlings but can grow into healthy new and profitable products that provide new value to our customers.

Many farmers now make use of Farmers' Markets where they can sell their produce directly to the consumers. There are benefits to this on both sides as for the consumer, products are fresher and often sourced locally and for the farmer there is the opportunity to make a higher margin by having fewer intermediaries between them and the consumer. Product Managers seek out opportunities in markets adjacent to our existing ones and those where we can provide opportunities further along the workflow than our traditional products take us.

Like all successful farmers a Product Manager needs to look for ways to diversify. Farmers will look to exploit opportunities in new markets, for example, crops suitable for bio-fuels; organic crops or non-native animals such as Ostrich and Alpaca. Many farmers have turned to the tourist trade to offer farm holidays, Bed and Breakfast or campsite as new ways to maximise the resources they have available. Identifying opportunities in related areas can provide excellent new sources of revenue.

 

Jonathan Eversett
Senior Business Analyst

Landmark Information Group supports The Royal National Lifeboat Institution

Landmark Information Group entered two teams in to The Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s, Northampton branch, annual golf day on Tuesday 17th June at Northampton Golf Club.

Team ‘Landmark/NLS’ was made up of members of Northampton Law Society (NLS), Tom Kings (Tollers Solicitors), Bryan Hardman (Stetmans Solicitors), David Browne, (Hewitsons) and Phil Smith (Administrator – NLS)

Team ‘Landmark 1’, comprised of Paul Moyses and Stuart Whalley (IndexPI), Martin John (PIE) and the intrepid and talented Rob Phillipson (Head of Sales – Landmark Information Group).

In total there were seventeen 4-ball teams that took part, both Onesearch Direct and Shoosmiths Solicitors also entered teams, with players coming from as far afield as Ely, Birmingham and Bristol, as well as more locally from Kettering and Northampton.

The weather was fantastic and the teams were able to complete their rounds of the Harlestone course in glorious sunshine before gathering in the clubhouse for dinner and prize-giving.

The winning team was Landmark NLS with a score of 82 points which was achieved after a slow start and a points haul of 16 points on the final four holes.

The winning team members each received a Lifeboats medal and their prize from RNLI regional fundraising manager Terry James.

In addition, Tom Kings also picked up the prize for being nearest to the pin on the 9^th hole.

Jeff Sutherland-Kay, chair of the RNLI’s Northampton branch, said “We have been running an annual golf day since 2006 and the wonderful support of a number of commercial sponsors makes it all possible. The golfers have a great day out playing this lovely course and support the RNLI at the same time. So everyone is a winner.”

The RNLI is a charity and is funded by voluntary donations, with approximately a third coming from fundraising activities such as this years’ Golf Day which raised over £2100.

e-billing by numbers (and saving the planet!)

As part of our Corporate Responsibility programme and to support our DMGT Group goal to reduce our carbon footprint by 10% by 2015, this week (14^th to 18^th July 2014) sees the launch of ‘Green Week’.  The aim is to raise awareness of sustainability and climate change related topics, as well as to educate us all on how we can ‘be green’.

DMGT has successfully cut its carbon footprint by 25% over the last six years and we at Landmark have played an important part in this.  Initiatives such as installing solar panels on our roof, our car share scheme, travel plan and cycle-to-work policies, plus using video conferencing facilities have all worked towards reducing our CO₂ emissions and environmental impact. 

Here, Jenny Millman, Credit Control Manager at Landmark, talks about the recent programme of work that saw the transfer of our customer invoicing to e-billing.

“Our Promap team got the ball rolling.  A dedicated project team (spread throughout the business including sales and marketing, IT Dev, customer services and finance) was assembled and tasked with the implementation of electronic billing for Promap customers.

The following six months involved the gathering of customer requirements, project planning, data cleansing and a “Go Green” campaign promoting sign-up. On average, we now send a total of 18,000 Promap invoices and statements per month by email.

90% of all billing is paperless, which means prompt delivery of invoices to customers on day one, instead of second class mail delays, resulting in quicker payment for us and an improved service for our customers. We include a Worldpay link with our invoices, so that customers can pay on-line, without having to post cheques or remittance details to us, thus making an even greater resource saving.

Following on from the success with Promap, and in response to customer feedback, we released Landmark e-billing for Legal and Environmental reports in October 2012. We now send a further 7,000 invoices and statements electronically each month.

 

In October 2013, e-billing also went live for our sister company Argyll Environmental Ltd.

This project means that we now print and despatch around 400,000 fewer pieces of paper every year and the cost savings so far total more than £0.5million.  e-billing is a great example of saving money and saving the planet!”

OS Terrain® 5 and Terrain® 50 data now available on Promap

Data provides small and mid-scale height data for landscape and infrastructure

We've introduced Ordnance Survey’s Terrain® 5 and Terrain® 50 height datasets in our Promap digital mapping and data tool.  The datasets provide national coverage and enable land, property and environmental professionals to access detailed modelling of significant landscape and infrastructure features.

The OS Terrain® data is available in a range of 2D and 3D formats to suit different GIS and CAD applications. It is ideal for a range of uses including Line of Sight planning, Right to Light analysis, landscape visualisation and fly-through sequences, planning and development applications, wind/solar farm location planning, environmental and geological analysis and flood/weather modelling and associated risk assessment.

The Terrain® 5 and Terrain® 50 products are captured from the same source data that is used to produce other OS mapping and data products.  OS Terrain® 5 is a mid-scale height dataset that includes detailed modelling of significant landscape and infrastructure features such as road, rail, quarries and lakes.  OS Terrain® 50 is a small-scale height dataset that is ideally suited to landscape visualisation and analysis over large areas. Both are designed to be interoperable with other OS digital datasets such as MasterMap® Topography Layer and VectorMap® Local.

Carole Ankers, Product Development Director at Landmark Information Group said: “Introducing the OS Terrain® 5 and Terrain® 50 height datasets on Promap provides our customers with the ability to analyse height and contours of the UK’s contours, landscape and infrastructure.  It is ideal for a wide range of uses, from planning applications through to environmental analysis and much more, and is available for rapid data delivery and in a wide range of ready-to-use formats.”

Both datasets are available as a set of contours, along with spot heights and mean high and low watermarks, as well as a gridded Digital Terrain Model (DTM) representing the bare ground surface. The DTM product is also available as a 3D PDF that allows visualisation of the bare earth model without the need for additional processing or specialist software.

For more information visit:  http://www.promap.co.uk/maps-and-data/height-data/os-terrain

DMGT Green Week: 14-18 July 2014

This week sees the launch of DMGT Green Week, which aims to support our Group goal to reduce carbon footprint by 10% by 2015.  The week is a group-wide initiative and is a reminder to us all of the smaller initiatives we can all do on a daily basis to ensure we operate in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.

The aim is to raise awareness of sustainability and climate change related topics, as well as to educate us all on how we can ‘be green’.

Green Week runs from 14^th to 18^th July and we at Landmark are embracing the week with a variety of green activities, all of which follow these daily themes:

 

The week is a great way for us all to participate in a wide-range of initiatives, and activities will include: "The Great Green Bake-off", a Green Tea Party, British Red Cross donation points to donate old or unused items, visits from Organic greengrocers & Growers Co-operatives, a Wear Green to Work Day & Wear your Wellies to Work Day, plus being mindful about switching off lights or electric points and more. 

Wish us luck in our endeavours - we will be sharing photos and updates from Green Week on our blog and Twitter feeds.

Landmark’s commitment to environmental awareness and reducing our carbon footprint has grown over the years.  It has been recognised in achieving and maintaining the ISO14001 accreditation which is well respected. Our continued pledge to reduce waste, reduce consumption and re-use or recycle is ongoing and it is thanks to our team of Landmarker’s that we have been so successful to date.

Fluvial, pluvial, tidal, or groundwater: Landmark maps all flood risk

This month, Landmark featured in a prominent Sunday Telegraph supplement that focused on flood risk and protection.

The article focused on Landmark’s introduction of the ESI National Groundwater Flood Risk Map data, which has been integrated into the flood risk reports.  This means that detailed analysis on all forms of flood – fluvial (river), pluvial (surface water), coastal or tidal and now groundwater – can now be analysed to assess the risk posed at a given property or location.

With extreme weather conditions threatening to become ever more prevalent, plus Environment Agency data illustrating that overall flood risk has increased over the last decade, the ability to accurately assess associated risk is increasingly important in first stage prevention.

At Landmark, we provide access to specialist flood data from a range of expert sources and produce bespoke flood analysis reports to clarify what level of risk is posed to a particular area of land, building site or property.

Our environmental data is exhaustive and by analysing risk rather than susceptibility, our reports provide accurate due diligence, so preventative measures or an appropriate action plan can be put in place, as needed.

To read a copy of the full supplement – click here.

All properties are equal - but some are more equal than others...

Peter Stimson, managing director – financial risk at Landmark Information Group, has written the cover article for Mortgage Finance Gazette's July edition, which suggests that lenders should look forward and review some of the new emerging risks that may impact on lending in the future. He advocates the use of a property risk score:

"With all the news around property price increases, the outlook for the mortgage industry would appear to be bright. The recession is now over and the longer-term economic outlook appears rosy. However, as we emerge from a prolonged property slump it is worth a fresh view on not only what went wrong pre-2008 but also how the market has changed since this period. Whilst a lot of the lessons of the ‘noughties’ appear to have been taken on board, we don’t believe it is simply enough to look back to past mistakes; we also need to look forward and review some of the new emerging risks, which may have a profound impact on lending in the coming years.

Inflation: The pros and cons
Historically, one of the biggest issues the UK has faced is inflation. High inflation has a lot of negative issues associated with it: it impacts productivity and competitiveness, discourages savers, and can lead to increased wage/price spirals. However, it does have one ‘positive’ particularly with regards to risk: it reduces relative debt.

In simplistic terms, if inflation is at 10 per cent and goods, services, property and wages are increasing at the same level, a 95 per cent loan-to-value will in the course of three years reduce to less than 70 per cent. For those of you who remember the house price crash of the early 1990s (post MIRAS) the reason it was so short and there was ultimately such a strong bounce back was inflation approaching 20 per cent. Great news if you are a risk manager!

A new economic reality
Inflation however, is now no longer viewed as the main issue facing the UK in at least the medium term. Whilst we now have positive economic growth, there is still a lot of spare capacity in the UK economy and ‘stagflation’ (stagnation, low inflation) is viewed by many as a far greater threat.

With wage rises (averaging currently less than 1 per cent) still falling behind very low inflation (at now under 2 per cent), there is no reason to assume that the property rises we have seen in some parts of the UK will continue for much longer.

Arguably the current rises, particularly in London and the South East, are a supply/demand rebalancing post-2008 and once this has settled down, property inflation will come back to a level linked to broad affordability. This is even more likely to occur given the recent Mortgage Market Review changes and a determination by the Bank of England to ensure that property prices aren't fuelled by increased borrowing.

The message is clear. The old economic reality is being replaced by a new economic reality and this means that from a risk perspective, you can no longer count on inflation to at least solve part of the longer-term risk equation.

The current risk and lending dilemma Stagflation presents a particular problem for mortgage lenders. Not only does it mean that asset appreciation is uncertain, it also means capital requirements (which have increased several fold for higher LTV loans in recent years) remain higher for longer. This makes higher LTV lending (anything above 75 per cent but especially 85 per cent +) very costly and therefore unattractive.
There is also the question of default and losses.

All things being equal, (based on some analysis I undertook a few years ago in a previous life), a 95 per cent loan is seven times more likely to default than a 75 per cent LTV loan. This situation is dramatically exacerbated if a property isn't appreciating or, more worryingly, is depreciating.

In short, consumer equity or more crudely, ‘skin in the game’ really matters.Given all of the above, it is hardly surprising that lenders have been reluctant to offer high LTV loans and it has taken direct ‘encouragement’ from the government to get the market moving here - much of which is arguably counter to the message they have been giving banks to manage risks more carefully.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there The risk approach banks have historically used (and by this I do mean risk as opposed to fraud prevention) has focused on three key strands: loan-to-value, consumer willingness to pay (credit history); and consumer ability to repay (affordability). Of the three, affordability is perhaps the most over-hyped risk in that from experience, unless a lender has clearly lent a consumer an unaffordable amount, it has a relatively low impact.

There is, however, a fourth factor now clearly coming into play in this new environment and that is individual property risk. Surely I hear you say, the banks look at this already? What about the mortgage valuation? Well, the answer to this is a partial yes, but I am referring to a fundamental revision of the way banks assess the security of a property.

If you look at the current process, the banks instruct a qualified surveyor who in nearly all cases does a good job of assessing current condition, value and providing property specific data. Based on this and the other risk factors a bank will make a lending decision. However, the lending decision is invariably a largely ‘point in time decision’ for a loan, which is typically 25 years in length.

With no real certainty around asset appreciation, it is my view that assessing a property should preferably look at a wider range of factors to ensure that the property itself has a good long-term outlook. This means assessing things such as socio-economic conditions, environmental information such as flood and subsidence data, past sales history and historical price appreciation, local area demand now and in the future, and other long-term trend data. In other words, a robust holistic view of the property and environment in which it sits.

Some properties are more equal than others
As we are now firmly in the digital age, there exists a huge amount of data on UK properties, both at a macro and individual level. As well as historical sales and marketing data, there also exists huge amounts of environmental data ranging from typical concerns such as flood to more current issues like fracking. There is also the influence property type and location has on an asset’s long-term value.

This isn't a London and the South East versus the rest of the country argument. Property disparity is easily evidenced across all UK locations where certain properties and specific locations have performed Significantly better than others that may be close by. The UK has a very heterogeneousness property mix and this, together with the physical and built environment, makes property a very mixed long-term outlook and a very specific risk.

‘Buy land, they’re not making it anymore’
Property used to be seen as a one way bet. The events of 2008 and the inflationary outlook should start to change this view. This also shouldn't be just a concern to lenders but also to property purchasers.

Landmark recently undertook a survey which showed that while 80 per cent of homeowners said they would not buy a house that was at risk of flood, only 42 per cent of people actually investigated flood risk before purchasing their home. The survey also found that 55 per cent of buyers expect their legal representative to inspect a property’s flood risk automatically as part of the conveyancing process. The phrase, ‘too little, too late’ springs to mind.

A conjoined approach
One problem with property and environmental data is how to use it in a meaningful assessment. Often data is looked at in an individual, ‘binary’ way. For example, is there a flood risk, yes or no?

Whilst it can be argued that events such as flooding or subsidence may be considered ‘low probability’ events, by analysing this level of data upfront together with other specific property and environmental data, it is possible to provide each property with a ‘risk score’. In much the same way that a lender evaluates an individual’s credit worthiness using a credit score, the data that exists around asset risk can equally be transformed into a property risk score.

Higher LTV lending
Currently LTV limits are non-specific. If a property is deemed in an acceptable condition and the current value is in line with the market, there is generally no discrimination in terms of LTV based on property or location.

However, if, by using the data available as a whole on the property, it should be possible to determine which properties represent a lower long-term risk and therefore allow LTV limits to become more flexible and based on specific rather than general risk. A holistic property risk approach would allow both lenders and consumers to be more informed as to the longer-term risks. It would also assist lenders in managing longer-term capital requirements by focusing the front end of a bank’s operations either towards properties with a better longer-term outlook or to accurately assess the level of long-term capital likely to be required

By doing so, lenders (and also insurers) will have greater peace of mind and security if environmental and property related information is automatically fed into the process – perhaps as part of the mortgage valuation
process.

Electronic desktop reports could be fed directly into the existing process and could include everything from flooding reports and contaminated land studies, through to bespoke data extracts that trigger enhanced due-diligence workflow.

To Access the Full Article from Mortgage Finance Gazette, click here.