The HEP was a project unique in scale, with many different disciplines, work packages and organisations needing to access and review the designs against wider environmental constraints as they were developed. The masterplan design comprised of over 1000 individual LUPs, each of which required detailed narratives and calculations to form the robust justification to convert them to formal ‘works’ for the DCO submission. Moata Geospatial was deployed to aid this process. The Mott MacDonald digital team worked closely with the HEP team to load all geospatial project data into the system to effectively manage the project.
Moata Geospatial provided a central data repository for all project information and consisted of two key components. Firstly, a map view to provide data visualisation and insight, which displayed all LUP boundaries alongside over 500 additional layers for context. To ensure the LUP boundaries were always current, the system was configured to allow direct LUP editing through desktop ArcGIS and AutoCAD software. A time slider widget was also developed to allow easy visualisation of how LUPs would be used through the construction timeline.
The second component was the integration of an editable DCO grid allowing authorized users to directly edit all LUP information, such as the LUP reference, zone, proposed land use and the task order justification text. The grid was linked directly to the spatial LUP layers, providing a seamless flow of information between the map and grid, allowing any changes to key fields, such as proposed land use, to be immediately reflected in the symbology of the LUPs on the map.
The system also directly integrated with Moata Land Management, Mott MacDonald’s system for handling the flow of land and engagement data for land referencing, land access requests, and planning and managing site visits. This integration enabled a real-time view of land management data on the map alongside all the other geospatial information.
Moata Geospatial became a fundamental tool which the HEP property and wider Heathrow users relied on to support the LUP reviews. The system was used by over 300 users from a variety of different disciplines, work packages and organisations, allowing real time collaboration and a single source of truth. In particular, the real-time editing of the LUPs using desktop software ensured versioning was never an issue and provided confidence to users that Moata Geospatial remained the single source of truth.
Furthermore, the integration of the map and DCO grid provided users with an easy way to interrogate the LUPs, providing a spatial context to help inform the justification text. Over 40,000 edits were made to the DCO grid, with each edit transaction tracked to provide a complete audit trail. Moata Geospatial was also used in over 80 hours of deep dive sessions, where each LUP was reviewed and challenged from a property, legal and planning perspective, with the risk rating and comments added live to the DCO grid by the expert panel. The deep dives were critical to refining and developing the scheme, with those attending stating it would not have been possible to work through so many proposals or capture the feedback as efficiently without Moata Geospatial.
“GIS, in the form of Mott MacDonald’s Moata Geospatial platform, has proven to be an invaluable tool for reviewing the overall scheme and capturing key land use data, including the justification text.” – Moata Geospatial user (taken from 20200428 WP6 Land Use Close Out Report).