Local Authority Bulletins
Find out about the services that TerraQuest have to offer
TerraQuest1 is the largest specialist land and planning services provider in the UK. They own the Planning Portal in a joint venture with Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and are the only company in the UK that provides all of the services below:
Land referencing for regeneration and infrastructure projects / compulsory purchase orders2
Land referencing is the research, analysis, and presentation of all interests in land impacted by schemes to be completed using powers of compulsory acquisition.
A recognised challenge to major infrastructure projects is that of compulsory purchase-management. There is a need to bring more certainty and control to scheme budget and risk management.
Accurate and up-to-date land referencing information can play a key role in mitigating financial risk through direct access to up-to-date and appropriately structured data by compulsory purchase order (CPO) consultants.
TerraQuest has been providing land referencing services to many Local Authorities since 1972 on CPO schemes of all sizes.
Most recently TerraQuest provided this service to Richmond and Wandsworth Councils (Winstanley and York Road Regeneration), St Helen’s Council (St. Helen’s town centre regeneration), Enfield Council (Meridian Water Development), Leeds City Council (East Leeds Orbital Route) and many others.
This portal enables users to access, review and analyse geospatial and textual data, supporting decision-making and delivery of land and property transactions. The portal is the single source of truth of quality approved land referencing data to all approved stakeholders.
The portal is currently being used by Local Authorities and planning legal firms for regeneration projects as well as by land agents and large utility companies such as National Grid.
Planning Application Validation Services (PAVS)4
Our PAVS service helps Local Planning Authorities to successfully handle their increased workload, clear application backlogs and meet service-level commitments by validating all types of electronic and paper planning applications. The service checks planning applications against national and local planning policies and directly uploads them into the local authority back-office system.
An application can be received and validated on a case officer’s worklist within just 24 to 48 hours.
Planning Application Case Evaluation Service (PACES)5
Our expert team of case officers are on-hand to assist with the evaluation and determination of any planning application cases, from validation all the way through to the decision with the council’s committee. Our officers are skilled in communicating and negotiating with applicants and agents, helping with the smooth running of every case.
Over 30 Local Authorities have used our PAVS and PACES services in the last 12 month alone. These include Bournemouth, Christchurch and Pool (BCP), Dorset, Calderdale, Liverpool, North Lincolnshire, Rochdale, East Devon among others.
Local Land Charges Migration Service
TerraQuest first undertook a detailed investigation into the readiness of Merton Council’s local land charges register to migrate to HM Land Registry and then provided project management resource to coordinate and oversee local land charges data preparation, capture and migration for the council.
Local Authority Planning Systems’ Review
TerraQuest has been working with Merton Council since July 2022 providing a full diagnostic analysis of their land and property business process back-office systems, focusing on:
o Conducting a full review of usage of the existing system across the council
o Assessment of business processes in place for each service area that uses the system
o Conducting a critical review of the solution and supplier, understanding fitness for purpose
o Gathering of high-level requirements with a review of the market for each of the service areas via soft market testing, with emphasis on innovation to meet future council needs
o Benchmarking against other London Boroughs/Local Authorities, identifying what systems and strategies are being adopted
o Options appraisal with due consideration of value for money strategies and solutions to deliver current and future requirements
Site ID and Site Assessment Services6
TerraQuest successfully delivered Site ID service to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP Council) and Hull Council through Local Partnerships by providing land referencing and site assessment services through Land Registry records and analysis of appropriate spatial data sets with results being presented on an Ordnance Survey base that is compatible with use of geographic information systems (GIS) including layers of information using maps and 3D scenes.
This allowed TerraQuest to provide a list of developable plots with detailed land information of each plot including a range of data sources used to identify positive and negative features relating to each site.
And finally producing detailed individual assessment reports for agreed shortlisted sites. This included analysis of site constraints and attributes to enable architects and costs consultants to generate concept schemes.
TerraQuest also provided Site Assessment service to Bradford, Rotherham and Calderdale Councils.
Digitisation of Planning and Building Control documents / Digital Transformation7
TerraQuest has digitised and transformed planning, building control or local land charges records for many Local Authorities including Ards & Northdown, Exeter and Mid Sussex Councils.
Data Capture - Detailed Audit/Consultancy8
TerraQuest has undertaken detailed audit of the processes and the data sets used for the determination of the adoption status and extents for the highways within Derbyshire County Council.
Why choose TerraQuest?
TerraQuest has been working with Local Authorities on transformation and modernisation programmes for over 25 years. These include the Planning Portal, which is used across all authorities in England and Wales and have recently launched the Northern Ireland Planning Portal which seamlessly integrates applications into the back-office system, this system is used across 10 Northern Ireland Councils and operates on behalf of the Department for Infrastructure.
TerraQuest have a professional team of highly skilled developers that are well-versed in planning system developments through all or part of the lifecycle to meet client expectations. Over time we have developed highly efficient solutions that have streamlined our work in this field and allowed us to firm up our place as one of the leading providers of planning systems and digital transformation services.
TerraQuest’s Service Delivery Managers, Technical Consultants and Business Analysts have over 100 years’ combined experience of managing public and private sectors’ projects and have been providing line management and management reporting for the TerraQuest data projects for many years.
TerraQuest work collaboratively with Local Authorities to identify pain points such as budget constraints, systems and resource capacity, challenging deadlines etc, which can increase inefficiencies, costs and risks, and provide innovative cost-effective solutions in a timely manner.
TerraQuest is an approved Crown Commercial Services supplier through the G-Cloud 13 framework, and our services can also be procured through crowncommercial.gov.uk9.
If you would like to learn more about any of these services please contact:
Julius Rwegasira email: julius.rwegasira@terraquest.co.uk10
Jonathan Fincher email: jonathan.fincher@terraquest.co.uk11, telephone: 0121 234 1300
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/land-referencing/
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/land-property-portal/
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/planning-application-services/
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/planning-application-services/
- https://ecab.planningportal.co.uk/uploads/TerraQuest_Site_ID.pdf
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/digitisation-and-transformation/
- https://www.terraquest.co.uk/services/digitisation-and-transformation/
- https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM1557.13#key-facts
- mailto:julius.rwegasira@terraquest.co.uk
- mailto:jonathan.fincher@terraquest.co.uk