“Don’t let environmental risks halt the growth of Smart Cities”

Landmark to address delegates at Cities Convention, 22-23 April 2015,

Altitude London in Millbank Tower

As ‘City Growth Sponsor’ of the forthcoming Cities Convention, Landmark Information Group will be delivering a talk that reviews the role environmental due-diligence plays in supporting the growth of smarter, sustainable cities and infrastructure.

The Cities Convention, which is CPD-event hosted by BRE, invites delegates from local government, town planners, engineering firms, architectural practices and building services organisations, to address and debate a range of issues related to urban development and assesses ways in which cities can become smarter, more efficient and ‘greener’ using smart solutions, technology and data.

Chris Loaring, Commercial Manager for Argyll Environmental – a Landmark Information Group company – will be discussing the challenges of redeveloping brownfield sites. This will include how to identify, analyse and resolve potential land issues, from contaminated land and flood risk through to ground stability, to ensure potential risks do not halt the planned growth of smart cities or related infrastructure.

Comments Chris Loaring: “Managing environmental risk in property portfolios, or land assets, is a real challenge, particularly for established urban areas where new planning applications and development are more likely to centre on brownfield sites.   At Landmark, we have access to the most comprehensive environmental and property data in the UK, and as such, provide a range of risk assessment services to help those involved in managing urban growth uncover any environmental risks at the outset to appropriate steps, potentially leading to remediation, can take place to facilitate development.”

Adds Amanda Brackey, Head of Conference at BRE: “The aim of the Cities Convention is to unlock solutions that are available today to help shape and form the cities of the future.  By bringing together a diverse group of professionals, the event will help inform and provide examples of innovation and best practice, which are geared towards making cities smarter, more efficient and environmentally prosperous.”

As ‘City Growth Sponsor’ of the Cities Convention conference, Landmark Information Group, which is the UK’s leading supplier of digital mapping, property and environmental risk information, will be available to meet delegates and provide demonstrations of its environmental reporting, analysis and mapping solutions, and to showcase the breadth of Landmark’s national land and property ‘big data’ datasets.

For more information regarding the Cities Convention, visit www.citiesconvention.com

Landmark’s new Envirocheck Analysis fully digitises Phase 1 desk studies

• Environmental consultants can now digitally access current and historic maps AND related environmental data to streamline the Phase 1 analysis process of Environmental Site Assessments 

• Removes the need to cross-reference separate printed reports containing historical maps, current maps, aerial photography and environmental data

• Significantly cuts assessment time, saving money, whilst also improving overall accuracy of historical map and environmental data analysis

We are today proud to announce the launch of a brand new edition of Envirocheck Analysis, which has been designed to fully digitise the desk study process of Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessments, which are conducted for land and property developments.

The new Envirocheck Analysis enables Environmental Consultants to digitally analyse current and historical maps and aerial photography, in conjunction with environmental data. This means that from within a single online platform, professionals can now accurately assess environmental risk factors related to a piece of land, without the need to overlay printed maps, manually draw boundaries or search through rafts of printed reports for potential sources, pathways or receptors of contamination.

Early customer feedback on the new Envirocheck Analysis platform has suggested that the time it takes to conduct the data analysis process is reduced by at least 25%.

Commenting on the launch of the new Envirocheck Analysis, Richard Puttock, Partner of Peter Brett Associates LLP said: "Envirocheck Analysis is really changing the way that we conduct our Phase 1 Site Assessments. In the past, we have ordered our environmental data and historical map reports through Envirocheck and spent our time analysing PDF reports and even printing the documents out to have physical copies to work through. Since adopting Envirocheck Analysis, we are already saving significant amounts of time in analysing historical mapping, and the measuring and drawing tools provide a great level of accuracy, in much less time. 

Continues Richard Puttock: “We have been involved in the entire user testing phase for the new Envirocheck Analysis, and we can't wait to start using it for all our Phase 1 desk studies. With all of Envirocheck's environmental data layers being added into the application, we no longer have to spend so long identifying symbols on maps and relating ID numbers back to separate datasheet reports. Now we can visualise everything in Envirocheck Analysis, alongside current and historical mapping, and make an assessment on the potential risk in much less time. Ultimately, this allows us to complete the job more efficiently without comprising accuracy or quality, which helps us provide an even better service to our clients."

The key features of the new Envirocheck Analysis include:
• Overlay digital environmental data onto current or historical maps to determine potential contamination risks
• Instantly review information behind every dataset to understand what is being highlighted and the potential risks
• Decide how far away from the target site you want data displayed to by using the Distance Filter tool for every dataset
• Access a range of aerial photography plus drawing and measuring tools to mark-up Phase 1 assessments
• Draw Pins to instantly highlight historical land use or environmental concerns – each pin records a grid reference, plus the distance and direction from site using an accurate measuring tool
• Instantly Export these Pins (and their associated information) as a table, directly into environmental site assessment reports.
• View an instant summary of the number of potential risks via a handy ‘feature count’ tool
• Create instant photo snapshots of the site that can be exported to reports
• Saves hours per Phase 1 desk study on historical map and environmental data analysis

Mark Burnard, Senior Product Manager at Landmark Information Group, said: “Through extensive industry consultation, we've listened to what our customers want and are excited to today launch the new Envirocheck Analysis platform.  It enables consultants to be able to assess and analyse mapping and environmental data faster, with more accuracy and ultimately helps deliver detailed and highly accurate reports to clients, faster.  The aim is to remove the need for consultants to have to use light boxes, lots of paper, scale rules and sticky tape when analysing printed maps with environmental data: now this can be all done online.”

Concludes Mark Burnard: “The evolution of environmental reporting doesn't stop here. With the new Envirocheck Analysis platform fully digitising the historical map and environmental data analysis element of Phase 1 assessments, plans are already underway to integrate Site Walkovers into the online platform.  We have some more exciting developments coming very soon, which will integrate remote and mobile working. Watch this space for updates.”

Launch Promotion:
Envirocheck Analysis is available free of charge during August and September. For more information on Envirocheck Analysis, telephone 0844 844 9952 or email customerservice@envirocheck.co.uk.

Envirocheck Analysis - providing digital access to maps and environmental intelligence

The Data behind the Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games is now well underway in Glasgow with 4,500 athletes taking part and many thousands of anticipated visitors and spectators.  In the build-up to the Games, the significant investment, redevelopment and regeneration of the city has been particularly interesting to monitor. 

The impressive Athletes Village has been built over 35 hectares, which is alongside the Emirates Stadium – a state of the art facility that opened in 2012, with a seating capacity of over 5,000 spectators.  The Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome has also been developed alongside the stadium, while the SECC Precinct, which is just short of 2 miles from Glasgow’s centre, forms the largest single venue of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Having run some analysis through our Promap and Envirocheck systems, it has provided us with some great insight into the history of Glasgow and, in particular, the areas that have been subject to recent redevelopment in readiness for the Games.  

When looking at all of Glasgow’s venues, the first thing that we quickly identified is that there are over 4,800 instances of historic land use within the immediate vicinities.

The SECC Precinct has 36 instances of potentially contaminative historic land use within a mile of the site just from the earliest map alone, all of which are of a diverse nature: from transport manufacturing & repair, saw-milling, metal casting, through to cargo handling, railways and even the site of a former cemetery.

Historic maps also show that the SECC Precinct has been built on the site of the old Queen’s Dock. With the decline in shipping traffic, the dock became redundant and was filled in with rubble from the demolition of St Enoch station in the late 1970’s.

The redevelopment of the various sites in and around Glasgow really goes to show that past land use shouldn't limit or restrict future use or development.  By accessing the right data, it provides a detailed picture into the past use of the land, meaning the correct remediation can take place to enable future progress. 

With a current emphasis on building more residential properties across the UK – including re-purposing and utilising unused brownfield land or sites – it just goes to show that understanding the past use of the land can help transform an area for today and also for future generations to come. 

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.”