In November last year, we announced the launch of an exciting new project called NUAR Discovery. This project is exploring if and how additional benefits could be delivered, by increasing access to the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR). We launched this due to:
- regular requests for access to NUAR which: fall outside of the current user base of underground asset owners and their supply chain; are for purposes beyond the currently permitted safe digging use case; or seek to access the data in ways outside of the current user platform
- 75% of respondents in our 2022 public consultation expressing support for expanding the prescribed use cases, with many also suggesting specific ideas
- data service providers regularly contacting us to ask how they can help ensure that NUAR data is used in as many excavations as possible
- both users and service providers expressing an interest in accessing NUAR data outside of the existing user interface, perhaps using an Application Programming Interface (API)
Since our last blog on this in January, where we put out an open call for anyone to suggest ideas or express their interest in participating, we have completed an extensive period of stakeholder engagement. This included seven in-person workshops focusing on different themes and an online event. Over 200 individuals, from nearly 150 different organisations, contributed, with representation from across the UK and a broad range of industries in both the private and public sectors.
Not only did we also find this process a hugely inspiring example of cross-sector collaboration, it was also extremely fruitful, with over 100 different potential future uses emerging from the process. These ideas ranged from:
- using NUAR in new ways, for example in regional planning (e.g. flood risk management or selecting sites for development); for design and construction; in academic research and policy development; for buying and selling land; or even for major incident response
- making NUAR available to other user groups for safe digging purposes, such as landowners and developers
- enabling new ways for people to access NUAR data, beyond the existing NUAR platform’s user interface
Opportunities will be taken forward in future years should they be technically feasible, of value, in the public interest, taking into consideration the views of stakeholders including asset owners. However, new opportunities do not come without constraints and risks – and as a result, our NUAR Discovery project has now progressed into a more detailed testing phase, to help us determine the relative feasibility and potential value of the various ideas that have emerged.
You also may have seen that we have recently published the data model that underpins NUAR and enables us to present underground asset data from hundreds of different organisations in a clear and consistent way. One of the benefits of having a data model is that it provides a solid, well-defined foundation, that could be extended to accommodate future innovation and, potentially, opportunities identified by the NUAR Discovery project.
Collaboration and close stakeholder engagement remain very much at the heart of this more detailed testing phase but in a more targeted way. Our core methodological approach is detailed one-to-one interviews with a range of specific subject-matter experts, including asset owners, security experts and other key stakeholders.
Through this we are interrogating the different propositions much more deeply and building a more confident picture of the truly viable concepts and the realities of bringing them to life. This process will continue to the end of the summer, with a broad range of organisations engaging in the process.
So, what happens next?
When testing is complete, we will have the evidence base we need to make decisions about whether to make NUAR data more widely accessible, and if so how. By putting the best available evidence from this research at the heart of our policy development, we can make well-informed decisions about the future of NUAR.
We are aiming to conclude this discovery project in the coming months and will update stakeholders on the outcomes of this work. Please look out for future updates on our GOV.UK website, for the latest news on NUAR as it progresses. You can also email Nuar.Support@atkinsrealis.com, if you have any questions for the team.
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