Ordnance Survey Picked to Build National Underground Asset Register

In an unsurprising move, Ordnance Survey (OS) has confirmed that they’re working with Atkins to build the UK Government’s new National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), which is a digital map of underground pipes (water etc.) and cables (broadband, power etc.) that could help reduce accidental damage.

Much as we reported last month (here), the Government believes there is huge potential for location data to improve the way that national infrastructure is planned, built and managed, from informing where our future “gigabit-capable broadband” and 5G mobile networks need to go, to planning how and where to connect utilities, and designing new housing developments etc.

One of the ways such a map could help is by reducing the amount of accidental damage that occurs to existing infrastructure, which one estimate suggested could cost up to around £2.4bn each year. But this does rather ignore the fact that alternative platforms, such as the LSBUD (Line Search Before You Dig) service, already exist to provide a similar facility.

Nevertheless, NUAR’s digital map is expected to be pieced together over the next 3 years, starting in the North East of England, Wales and London (Northern Ireland to follow). The associated Geospatial Commission previously appointed Atkins to deliver the Build Phase of NUAR, and they in turn have now appointed OS to help create the map.

Chris Tagg, Head of Geospatial Solutions at OS, said:

“We are delighted to be part of this exciting transformative project. The development of a UK wide underground digital map of the nation’s utilities has been an innovation focus for OS for several years and it is great that the National Underground Asset Register is now entering the build phase.

We are looking forward to working with Atkins, 1Spatial and the other partners on the build and sharing our world leading geospatial data, as well as our know how and learnings from supporting customers across the utility sector for many years.”

None of this will come as much of a surprise because OS helped to build some of the concepts that ultimately led to the NUAR. For example, they were part of a similar 2018 project with the Northumbrian Water Group. On top of that there was OS’ own Project Iceberg, which explored how to better capture, collect and share data about underground assets and geological conditions.

OS has also recently been a member of a consortium, with utility companies and local authorities in the North East, developing a digital data exchange platform as part of one of the Geospatial Commissions NUAR pilot projects.

The aforementioned pilot, underpinned by geospatial data, enabled any of the participating organisations to see an integrated, common and consistent map view of the underground assets in the location they are looking to excavate, with the most crucial operational information available, on a single device.