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Introduction

Land referencing, the process of identifying people and organisations with legal interests over land required for the scheme, is a fundamental discipline for a project of the scale of HS2, informing community engagement and access to land for environmental surveys. It plays a key role in minimising required land-take, lowering the number of stakeholders affected, and controlling project costs. Management of land referencing data has commonly been done using spreadsheets, however for a project on the scale of HS2, we identified that something more sophisticated was required. To answer this challenge, our team developed a purpose-built application, Moata Land Management.

Challenges

Mott MacDonald was awarded numerous work packages across the HS2 route, including Phase 1 (Old Oak Common Country South) Land Referencing and Assembly, Phase 2a Land Assembly, and Phase 2b Environmental Impact Assessment and Survey Management. This required scheduling of over 35,000 surveys, the creation and service of over 27,000 statutory notices and the negotiation of over 40,000 access agreements. To successfully complete these land referencing and land access activities, carried out on an unprecedented scale, our teams required an integrated solution, bringing together spatial and non-spatial data into a single system, acting as a single source of truth on the project.

Solutions

We recognised that a cloud-based digital solution could bring enormous advantages to teams working on the project – providing a centralised single source of truth, permission trimmed to allow each user to see data in the system relevant to their role on the project. Our team developed a purpose-built application, Moata Land Management, integrating geospatial land ownership, and stakeholder information. Information is stored in a secure, GDPR compliant database. As a web-based system, Moata Land Management can be accessed from anywhere by project teams, the client, and where required, the wider supply chain.

Results

Moata Land Management was developed to handle huge quantities of land information, accessible to numerous users. This was best illustrated at the height of activity on our HS2 projects, where over 550 users were uploading or accessing information through the system simultaneously. Another core benefit of Moata Land Management was the ability to react quickly to the queries and access needs of specialist suppliers as the project progressed – including environmentalists, archaeologists, surveyors, and enabling and main works contractors. Providing all contributors with real-time information and co-ordinating their site access requirements helped to minimise disruption to landowners whilst reducing the risk and costs of stand-downs resulting from land access delays. Strong co-ordination through Moata Land Management also minimised the reputational impact for the client that could have been caused by acquiring land, or securing land access, at a time when it wasn’t immediately required.

More case studies from Mott MacDonald

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Mott MacDonald

A303 Sparkford to Ilchester Dualling

Community engagement Geographical information systems (GIS) and mapping Environmental and sustainability services

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