Plant Protection Services (Line Search)

Additional or repeat goods, services or works - Criteria Description and justification.

The service has been in continual use for many years and at present there is no viable alternative in the market that has the required utility coverage the use of a similar type of service would be too distinctly different the current service. This would result in incompatibility issues with well-established WWU processes and procedures

The UK government have been developing a National Underground Asset Register (NUAR). This is currently at the minimum viable product stage but the contract for developing into a commercial platform has been awarded to Ordnance Survey. The system needs further development, and the commercial model is still to be agreed. There may also be legislation to mandate its use by asset owners and anyone undertaking Street Works or civil works ahead of those works. We don't expect NUAR to be available as a platform until 2027 and therefore need to have continuity of our service and meet our requirements under the New Roads and Streetworks Act to share details of our assets and their locations with third parties.

Our Plant Protection process relies heavily on the automated nature of the LSBUD system, which issues, on average, 60,000 responses a month. Any change in provider could impact how many responses are issued and how we share data with 3rd parties' requestors. The MI we receive from LSBUD allows us to priorities requests through an alert process, using a risk-based approach. The data we receive is also used as part of the damage investigation process to identify any searches undertaken in a specific area over a designated period. Significant involvement from an IT perspective would be required if a change to the system was made, to implement a new process for sharing data with 3rd parties.

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Single Suppler - Criteria Description and justification

LSBUD have developed a service platform which provides free plans and safety advice to those undertaking StreetWorks or other civil works. There is no alternative platform available that can support WWU need for Plant Protection Mapping Services. The platform also provides MI back to the asset owners allowing management of higher risk assets, billing of parties undertaking legal and commercial searches and a live 'Elastic' dashboard of all searches undertaken across the network through the system.

LinesearchbeforeUDig (LSBUD) have developed a service for Asset owners over the past 10 years with over 160 Asset owners now using the service for which they pay a fee to LSBUD. The LSBUD service is used by over 300,000 registers users who receive free plans and safety advice.

WWU previously tested the market through a tender in 2017 with only Digdat providing a response other than LSBUD. Digdat have not developed their service beyond water companies and there is no other service provider in the UK market.