To ensure successful project delivery it’s vital that project engineering, environment and engagement teams have visibility of all stakeholder interactions, especially those with landowners in order to arrange surveys. Historically, survey co-ordination was organised using multiple excel spreadsheets which became large, unwieldy documents, and were frequently inaccessible to the wider project team. These lacked integration with land referencing, design and consultation management systems. This approach introduced significant risk where data handling errors caused delays and financial penalty, inconsistent knowledge across the project team, potential legal issues and compromised the validity of survey results.

We developed an accessible, innovative, integrated survey and land access management solution: Moata Land Management, that assimilates data provided by SLS (Site Land referencing Services) and other parties in various formats into a standardised single solution. We rolled out the system using training and outreach sessions, with users rising rapidly to 270 in the first two months. To date the system has scheduled 35,000+ surveys, logged 25,000+ contact events, and confirmed 40,000+ access arrangements.

Connecting knowledge across departments, contracts, companies and technical systems ensured a single source of truth. All survey, land access and stakeholder information is held in a common data environment, reducing the risk to data validity, accuracy and currency which can occur when using multiple spreadsheets. Using Moata Land Management allowed planned and historical survey information to be viewed or extracted, improving the ability to schedule surveys and report on progress. Delivering 15-20% efficiency to the survey work stream translated to an estimated £1.5-2m in cost savings annually.