English Cities Fund - Salford City Council

The brief:

This scheme aims to transform the area by creating new residential and commercial spaces plus the redevelopment of the university campus.

Terraquest’s land referencing services helped with the early planning stages of the project, allowing for quick, data-led decisions.  

Our solution:

TerraQuest‘s land referencing team successfully delivered an extensive desktop land referencing service with market-leading software to both the council and the developer partner, ECF. This exercise confirmed ownership, land boundaries, and occupational interests to inform a draft Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) plan and schedule.

This service encompassed the following key components:

• Land registry enquiries: We initiated a search of an Index Map (SIM) to identify all titles, thoroughly examining these titles to pinpoint interests related to the masterplan and other parties with equitable interests, easements, rights, and restrictions.

• Source data comparison: We meticulously reviewed and compared data previously compiled for the project by the Council and other collaborators with the data collected by TerraQuest. The aim was to ensure that all land related information was consolidated into a single, comprehensive document.

• Non-Contact site survey: A site visit was conducted to validate and confirm the boundaries and descriptions of land parcels. This visit also aimed to identify any unregistered interests that might not be included in the Land Registry titles.

• Draft land referencing schedule and plan: As a result of these efforts, we produced a detailed schedule and plan that presented all the information gathered up to that point.  

This document served as a valuable reference for the project.

The outcome:

The comprehensive Land Referencing exercise, covering the entire masterplan area, proved invaluable in helping the council and its partners gain a deep understanding of the various party interests involved. This understanding served as a critical foundation for reviewing and determining the project’s phases, shaping the planning application, and guiding negotiations with stakeholders the data derived from the mapping results.

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