The challenge
With around 196,000 acres of land to manage across Britain, including agricultural farmland, heritage assets, renewable energy sites and commercial properties, Buccleuch needed to extend and simplify access to information across its portfolio.
The company had a wealth of existing land data, often niche and complex, and recognised that a holistic approach to land management was essential. The aim was to build a more complete, reliable and accurate digital inventory of their land and property assets to help manage their estates to their greatest potential, simplifying processes for staff and giving them access to the entire range of up-to-date information.
Buccleuch commissioned thinkWhere to undertake an audit of its spatial data and GIS infrastructure, understanding the needs of the company now and in the future. One of the major recommendations was to move to a cloud-hosted database and web mapping system.
“I think we’re well ahead of most estate management companies thanks to groundMapper. We had a very good collection of data before, and now everything is in one place, easy to access and up to date.”
Chris Brown,
GIS Manager,
Buccleuch Estates
The solution
groundMapper is an innovative online GIS for managing map-based asset information and associated data, and for easily sharing information with stakeholders. It offers Buccleuch the perfect solution to capture and maintain asset datasets.
The latest version of groundMapper, as used by Buccleuch, includes the ability to add, update and manage custom geographic datasets, incorporates what3words geocoding and has the capacity to add non-spatial data and look-up tables. The system also offers online data editing.
The rollout
With extensive existing data, a smooth transition from previous systems was imperative. groundMapper was seamlessly linked to Buccleuch’s Asset Management system and now provides previously non geo-referenced information with a spatial component.
In addition to storing Buccleuch’s own data, groundMapper provides access to an up-to-date suite of environmental and topographic contextual data acquired, hosted and maintained by thinkWhere. Data suppliers include Ordnance Survey, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Scottish Government.
Buccleuch has approx. 96 groundMapper users across its organisation. Staff can continuously maintain and update land and property asset data, making relevant data easy to access for all.
In summary, access to up-to-date information covering a comprehensive range of datasets, accessible across the whole organisation when needed, has helped Buccleuch to efficiently streamline its processes, using a reliable and intuitive software solution.
Managing assets to their greatest potential
groundMapper has digitally transformed how Buccleuch easily capture, maintain and communicate their land and property assets and associated information.
Having instant access now to all their information, stored digitally within Cloud GIS, and available to key stakeholders online, provides Buccleuch with a single source of truth that can be further developed, and ensures effective data sharing and improved decision making.
With an easy-to-use, accessible and scalable platform, the collaboration with thinkWhere means Buccleuch can focus on managing and developing their estate even more successfully, informed by the highest quality managed GIS and data services provided by thinkWhere.
