Natural England

NCAF 10/1 Defining the Boundaries of Access Land in England - presentation by Binnie, Black & Veatch

2. In addition to this paper our mapping contractors will be giving a short presentation to NCAF which will set out how they propose to tackle the contract, and then focus in on the mapping methodology. 

3. NCAF members are invited to comment on the proposals for rolling out the mapping process in England and the detail of the mapping methodology presented to them by Binne Black and Veatch

The Contract

4. After a rigorous competitive tender process the Agency decided to award the contract to Binne Black and Veatch (BB&V), specialists in environmental consultancy and mapping technology. The BB&V team also includes The Geo Data institute and QBO ( a media relations company). In the view of the Agency their tender offered the best value for money in terms of price and quality.

5. The contract we have signed with BB&V tasks them to carry out, on our behalf, all the activities required to produce draft, provisional and conclusive maps of open country and registered common land. The nature of the contract means that the role of Agency staff is concentrated on advising and guiding the process and making the final decisions on the location of the boundaries of open country rather than actually undertaking mapping and consultation work on the ground.

6. The main requirements of the contract are:

Ÿ to refine and finalise the draft mapping methodology produced by GeoData last year ;Ÿ produce draft, provisional and conclusive maps of open country and registered common land throughout England, together with all necessary preparatory work;Ÿ undertake the consultation process on the draft maps throughout England, keeping a comprehensive record of the responses received, the decisions taken in the light of the responses and the reasons for those decisions;Ÿ provide the necessary information to support the appeals process; and Ÿ to design, procure and install a desk top access mapping system, to enable the Agency to manage and publicise closures and restrictions on access land.

The mapping timetable

7. Draft maps for the two lead mapping areas in the north west and south east will be published in September 2001. The consultation process will take six months with provisional maps being published in March 2002. We anticipate that the conclusive maps for the two lead regions will be published by Autumn 2002.

8. The mapping of the rest of England will be carried out on a rolling programme, with work starting in a new mapping area every three months from December 2001 onwards. We expect the final conclusive maps to be published by the Autumn of 2004, and access to open country and registered common land to be available England wide by 2005. 

Regional Roll Out

9. The programme of rolling out the mapping across England is still under consideration. How we tackle the roll out is dependent on a number of factors. These are :

Ÿ the amount of open access and registered common land in the mapping area;Ÿ the complexity of the pattern of open access and registered common land in the mapping area and;Ÿ Ordnance Survey revision programme for their 1:25000 Explorer series.

10. Our current thinking on the roll out is that once we have mapped and consulted on the two lead regions we will then start mapping the South of England, we will then move to the north of England and map the whole of the north of England as two consecutive mapping areas. Once we have done this we will map the South West (from Exmoor to Lands End) and then complete the progress by mapping the East and West Midlands consecutively. We also plan to map the Welsh border as a separate area, the timing of this will be flexible so that we can link in with CCW to ensure that the maps are consistent at the border.