RSK Consents Solutions undertakes site finding searches for optioneering purposes. We have a proven track record of delivering agreements with landowners and enabling land assembly. When compulsory purchase powers are anticipated, we can also produce acquisition strategy reports. We can use our wider knowledge of compensation and asset valuation to feed into our on-site client advice options and scheme design.
Identifying the optimum route for overhead or underground apparatus to help minimise costs and risks is at the core of any utility or renewable installation project. We can work to tight timescales and our team has the skillsets to undertake initial route selection and feasibility studies, including analysing topographies, engineering obstacles, ownership and routing or construction constraints. During the production of the feasibility study, we will determine any land issues that may be perceived as obstructions. Using the data, we advise on the need for any landowner consents along with any permits or licences that may be also required from statutory bodies for, for example, river, road and railway crossings, protected species and habitats, environmentally sensitive areas and land of historical importance. It is paramount to identify any routing constraints at the outset of a project to enable effective and robust project mapping and to design the key milestones.
Land referencing may be used for many reasons and, depending on a client’s requirements, we can generate schedules or produce referencing documents. RSK Consents Solutions has a thorough understanding of both the English and Scottish Land Registry systems, including sasines. We are skilled in using wider databases and systems to assist our clients in demonstrating that they have complied with statutory requirements when necessary.
Our skills are varied: we offer desktop studies of priority areas through to full route land referencing services. On identifying the relevant legal interests, our GIS and data teams undertake title searches and desk-based research to identify land interests. Title information is retained and uploaded to project systems to enable further title searches regarding burdens and securities.
Through our extensive experience of negotiating with landowners, we use desktop tools to ascertain significant information about parties both before engagement and after the initial negotiations. We can also use this information to compile risk reports based on our experience with different parties and different types of interests in land. This can range from identifying inalienable landowners and sensitive receptors to assessing complications with tenancy information, preparing blight strategies or highlighting assets with significant cost or public relations implications.
We also offer strategic advice on negotiation parameters and, on acquisition timing, we can extend significant cost benefits to clients. The information can be used to help mitigate costs, determine scheme design and limit liabilities throughout a project.
RSK Consents Solutions, through its in-house mapping services, provides maps and plans in conjunction with land referencing, site finding and landowner negotiations services. We can provide land registry compliant maps, route overlays and parcelling plans, or we can tailor our service to a client’s requirements.
Site screening can be carried out via in-house GIS mapping tools that provide information on constraints such as agricultural land classifications, flood risks, green belts, environmental or historic land designations and residential properties, and can import additional data such as grid network asset locations. We can generate bespoke maps. Additionally, we have a highly experienced team of in-house town planners, archaeologists, landscape architects and ecologists. Combining these skills provides a development team that offers a one-stop solution from site identification through to appropriate technology type reviews and assistance with preparing and submitting planning applications.
RSK Consents Solutions undertakes professional cost estimate valuations of land and assets to deliver schemes, along with forecasts of the costs, fees and likely compensation payable following the compensation code.
The data can be used for budgeting a project and fed into a land strategy and risk report. The data are updated through the scheme’s life cycle as negotiations progress and more detailed information becomes available.
A property cost estimate can also populate the property risk report and enable land risks to be cost estimated on a sliding scale.