{"id":32727,"date":"2022-03-08T18:11:02","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogsnew.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=32727"},"modified":"2022-03-08T18:11:02","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:11:02","slug":"is-30m-underground-asset-register-a-waste-of-taxpayer-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=32727","title":{"rendered":"Is \u00a330M underground asset register a waste of taxpayer money?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) being created by the Geospatial Commission \u2013 part of the Cabinet Office \u2013 may be a waste of taxpayer money and lacks rationale, according to an underground asset specialist.<\/h3>\n

image: Open Government Licence v3.0<\/em><\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2026 But it has been done before\u2026. It has already mapped over 60% of the UK\u2019s underground assets\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

New Civil Engineer<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n

The Geospatial Commission’s NUAR is a project being headed up by Atkins, in collaboration with Ordnance Survey and 1Spatial, that aims to map the entirety of the UK\u2019s underground utility assets. The main purpose is to reduce the number of accidental strikes, which the commission says costs \u00a32.4bn annually.<\/p>\n

It has already spent \u00a323M of taxpayer money on hiring Atkins and \u00a34M on pilot programmes. Other associated costs such as staff salaries take this figure above \u00a330M. In an article published on Utility Week, Atkins divisional digital director and NUAR programme director Guy Ledger said \u201cWe\u2019ll look back in five or 10 years and think \u2018why wasn\u2019t this done before?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But it has been done before.<\/p>\n

There is a company called Linesearch BeforeUDig (LSBUD) that has been working in the industry for two decades and has 100 members across industries \u2013 including Shell, BP, National Grid, SES Water and Gigaclear, to name a handful. It has already mapped over 60% of the UK\u2019s underground assets, including roughly 90% of gas and electricity networks and almost 100% of high pressure pipeline networks. It is also growing consistently, as it carries out 3M searches every year.<\/p>\n

It is a wholly scalable offering\u2026.<\/p>\n

[Richard Broome said]<\/p>\n

….\u201cThe opportunities are there for a system that\u2019s been adopted by thousands across the industry, and it\u2019s working well, it\u2019s reducing strikes\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: \u2026. “It was, and continues to be, co-designed with stakeholders from across the marketplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe costs and benefits set out in the economic case are fully sourced and researched, and it is entirely false to suggest otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) being created by the Geospatial Commission \u2013 part of the Cabinet Office \u2013 may be a waste of taxpayer money and lacks rationale, according to an underground asset specialist. image: Open Government Licence v3.0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32729,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32727\/revisions\/32729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}