Historical insight for urban development projects

Leap Environmental Ltd (LEAP) is utilising historical Goad fire insurance maps from Landmark Information to support work it is conducting with Local Authorities and house builders on site prioritisation and investigation work. By assessing the Goad maps within Landmark’s Envirocheck Analysis tool, LEAP is able to identify potentially contaminated sites with greater accuracy.

The maps, which were first produced by Charles E. Goad for key urban areas in the UK during the late 1800s, provide highly detailed information on the construction methods of properties, in addition to their usage, height, street widths and information relating to location of internal features such as a boiler house, oil tank etc or whether asbestos was present within the building fabric.

Confirms Darren Beesley, Regional Manager of Leap Environmental: “By using Goad plans in our desk-based studies, we have gained access to a huge repository of data that greatly assists us in providing very detailed recommendations to our clients.

We were commissioned by a London Borough to assist in fulfilling its statutory duty under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to inspect its area for land that may be contaminated land. LEAP developed a site prioritisation plan for those sites that may require a more detailed inspection.

Using Goad maps as part of Landmark’s Envirocheck Analysis tool, we identified over 16,000 polygons of land of interest, where a potentially contaminative activity or land use was recorded. This was more than double that which we identified prior to using the Goad data. We prioritised the sites, applying a risk classification score. We were then able to present this data back to the local authority for actioning and thus assist them in fulfilling their Part 2A duties.”

Envirocheck Analysis enables swift and accurate assessment of an extensive archive of historical maps and environmental data. It speeds up the desk-based analysis by enabling users to visualise multiple dataset layers on a given mapped location. It automates measuring and removes the need to manually assess or copy paper maps.

The Goad insurance maps provide intricate detail – for example, an OS map may show a works, whereas the Goad drawings will confirm if it is a printing works, laundry, tannery or other such abstract uses.

Concludes Darren Beesley: “Using Envirocheck Analysis enables us to carry out detailed desk based analysis and prepare high quality Phase 1 desk studies. Data obtained from Envirocheck Analysis can then be imported into our GIS system to help us visualise and interpret the information as needed. Our clients are then able to confidently use the intelligence as part of their Part 2A requirements, or when considering planning applications.”