Ordnance Survey called in to map ‘what lies beneath’

FOR more than 220 years, Ordnance Survey has mapped out every inch and contour of the British Isles. Now, the Government-owned company has begun surveying the labyrinthine network of pipes and cables that lie underground in an attempt to save the economy more than £1billion each year.

It is hoped the new digital maps of what lies beneath will help to prevent some of the many accidental strikes on underground pipes and cables which are estimated to cost £1.2billion a year.

Around four million holes are dug every year by utility companies alone and, according to a Digging Up Britain report last year, there were nearly 4,000 injuries caused by “asset strikes” over six years in the UK.

Every construction project has to establish what gas, electricity, water and broadband pipes are buried beneath a site before work begins. Such searches invariably involve contacting each utility and communications company to try to ensure that works do not disrupt vital supplies or cause dangerous leaks.

Now, the Geospatial Commission, a committee of experts formed to maximise the Government’s use of location data, has asked Ordnance Survey to develop a digital National Underground Asset Register. Two pilot projects – one in the North East and the other in London – have taken place to try to establish how easy it is to draw up a map of the underground network of cables and pipes. The plan now is to begin mapping the underground for the entire country.

Carsten Roensdorf, strategic propositions manager at Ordnance Survey, who worked on the North East trial, said: “The situation in Britain means there has been a lot of complicated underground asset networks built in this country over the last 100 years or more.

“While network operators have information about where these assets are, there are gaps in the data. More importantly, there is no central place for all this information to come together.”

The two trials relied on utility and communication companies sharing detailed maps about what pipes and cables they have laid. Then a hand-held device tells engineers what network lies underground, in the same way a map shows buildings and roads.”

The need for underground maps was illustrated in 2004 in Belgium when 24 people were killed in the “Flanders Explosion”, when a gas pipeline was struck during construction work. The tragedy led to many other countries digitally mapping their underground network of pipes.