Connecting HS2’s giant land jigsaw

Land referencing is an unsung but fundamental discipline for a huge project like HS2. It identifies people and organisations with legal interests and rights over land required. It also plays a role in minimising land-take, lowering the number of affected parties as well as project costs.

Our 80-strong land advisory team has been involved in HS2, Europe’s largest infrastructure project, since 2012. This has seen it provide land referencing and ‘assembly’ services – grouping together adjoining plots for use as required by the project – on Phase 1 and Phase 2a, and environmental impact survey management for Phase 2b. We have identified and engaged interested parties, assembled land along the entire route, and arranged temporary and permanent access. This has been land referencing on an unprecedented scale.

Supporting the vast legislative bill

In the UK, approval for nationally significant projects is granted by parliament. The process starts with submission of a legislative bill seeking powers to construct the project. Effective land referencing is fundamental for the bill to pass smoothly into law as an act of parliament.

The scale is illustrated by Phase 1 (London to the West Midlands, almost 200km to the north west), which traverses 111 administrative areas and land owned by or of interest to tens of thousands of people. The bill took 22  months to prepare.

HS2 will ultimately connect London with Glasgow and Edinburgh. Construction is under way on phases 1 and 2a

Working out who had an interest in which piece of land was just the start of the process, says project director Chris Simpson. “Before it could become law, we had to establish a snapshot in time of the land ownership, but owners, tenants and occupiers change daily. As it went through the legislative process, we had to refresh that data through re-referencing, and only then could we start the assembly process and contact owners whose land would be acquired, temporarily or permanently, or perhaps just for access.”

With tangles of infrastructure and buildings to negotiate, the 10km from London Euston Station to Old Oak Common in west London saw 16,000 survey notices served to landowners and occupiers. The 26.5km Country South section, which includes Euston to Old Oak Common, required more than 8000 statutory land acquisition notices. Heading out of the city, land ownership became only a little simpler. Phase 2a will connect Birmingham in the midlands to Crewe, further to the north west. Our team provided land assembly services for the 60km between Birmingham and Crewe, requiring us to contact 4,400 affected parties and serve almost 4000 statutory notices to date.

North of Birmingham at Streethay, HS2 will cross the A38 trunk road, which is being lowered by constructing a cutting

Reducing the impact of land-take

Land referencing plays a crucial role in minimising the amount of land take a scheme requires. This starts with definition of a corridor which aims to take the smallest square meterage possible – clipping corners of fields, for example. The land referencing team then identified where ownership issues could be avoided by adjusting the route.

Our referencing team worked closely with landowners and often walked the route, to achieve practical adjustments, avoiding unnecessary land take and associated negotiations, cost and time.

A new approach to data

Spreadsheets are commonly used to manage land referencing data. But since land referencing data is applied throughout a project’s lifecycle, all the way from initial feasibility stages right through to any disposal of land once construction is complete, the quantities of data accrued for HS2 called for something more sophisticated.

We recognised that a cloud-based digital solution could bring enormous advantages – providing a centralised single source of the truth, available to everyone involved in the project. Our team developed a purpose-built application, which has now become Land Management, hosted on our Moata digital platform alongside a range of other digital solutions addressing the whole infrastructure lifecycle.

Moata Land Management integrates geospatial, land ownership and stakeholder information. All information is stored in a secure, GDPR compliant database. Because it is web based, it can be accessed from anywhere, by all members of the land referencing team, the client and the rest of the supply chain, including Mott MacDonald colleagues involved in other aspects of HS2. Land Management was designed to deftly handle hundreds of enquiries at a time, brilliantly illustrated at the height of activity, when 550 users were uploading or accessing information simultaneously.

550 users uploading or accessing information simultaneously

Another core benefit was the ability Land Management gave to react quickly to the queries and access needs of specialist suppliers as the project advanced through its preliminary stages – environmentalists, archaeologists, surveyors, and ground investigation, enabling works and main works contractors.

Providing all contributors with information and coordinating their site access requirements minimised disruption to landowners while reducing the risk and costs of stand-downs resulting from access delays. Strong coordination also minimised the reputational impact that could have been caused by securing land without an immediate need.

Managing thousands of surveys

For our Phase 2b involvement on the section from Crewe to Manchester and Wigan, Moata Land Management has been the repository for an immense compilation of 30,000 environmental impact assessment surveys that are held within the Survey Management element of the application. It’s been a monumental undertaking affecting more than 1200 landowners, each of which necessitated considerate liaison that has been managed and recorded via the system.

Users are key to the success of any new IT-based solution, so we rolled out the system with training and user support, bringing 270 new land referencing agents onboard in the first two months.

To date on Phase 2b (September 2022) the system has scheduled more than 35,000 surveys and confirmed over 40,000 access arrangements.

Land management had to take account of land required to enable construction, not just for the finished railway

Phase by phase breakdown

Phase 1 (Old Oak Common Country South) land referencing and assembly

• Length of route (our section): 26.5km
• Typical width of route: 110m
• Area acquired: 1.4km² (including HS2 acquired land)
• Statutory notices served (access and permanent): 24,000
• Individual landowner parties identified: 30,000

Phase 2a land assembly

• Length of route (our section): 60.5km
• Typical width of route: 40m
• Area acquired: 1.9km² (including HS2 acquired land)
• Statutory notices served (access and permanent): 3900
• Individual landowner parties identified: 4400

Phase 2b environmental impact assessment survey management​

• Surveys managed: 30,000
• Affected landowners: 1200
• Access arrangements confirmed: 40,000

Part of HS2’s legacy

Demand for land referencing services is growing fast thanks to ambitious transport, energy and water projects including those required to achieve the ‘green revolution’. Yet there are fewer than 1000 practitioners and land referencing is poorly recognised as a profession, with no specific qualification, practice definition or industry body. There is stiff competition for land referencing practitioners among employers.

Using HS2 as a propellant, our land referencing team has taken a lead on improving the situation, encouraging innovation and collaboration between companies.

150 apprentices to start in first five years

Our land referencing team committed over 1200 hours to create an industry-first apprenticeship and a not-for-profit industry association, the Society of Land Referencers.

The benefits include:

• Over 150 apprentices to start careers over the first five years
• Improved profile and recognition for practitioners
• Improved inclusion and diversity
• Improved skills, supported with structured continuous professional development, and better skills retention
• Catalyst for pan-industry collaboration and innovation