Land Journal MayJune 2016

Land Journal Jรถkulhlaup modelling in Greenland Recording glacial lake floods in unprecedented detail PG.

SuDS law Research into costing and valuing of sustainable drainage PG.

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12

The right match

Continent of hope

New land entrants and old hands brought together

Report from the second RICS African summit

PG.

18

PG.

6

May/June 2016

rics.org/journals

RICS L A N D JO U RN A L

A DV E RTI S I N G

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C O NTENTS

RI C S LAND JOUR NAL

Land Journal Jökulhlaup modelling in Greenland Recording glacial lake floods in unprecedented detail PG.

SuDS law Research into costing and valuing of sustainable drainage PG.

16

12

The right match

Continent of hope

New land entrants and old hands brought together

Report from the second RICS African summit

PG.

18

PG.

May/June 2016

rics.org/journals

6

Front cover: © Duncan Quincey

contents

CO N TAC TS

4 From the chairmen

LAND JOURNAL

5 Update

A new land-matching service for England aims to unlock business opportunities, says Alison Rickett

6 A continent of hope

20 Setting the world to rights

8 Savings from waste

22 Just think about it

Editor: Mike Swain T +44 (0)20 7695 1595

E mswain@rics.org

Editorial team: James Kavanagh, Fiona Mannix, Tony Mulhall (Land Group) Land Journal is the journal of the Environment, Geomatics, Minerals and Waste, Planning and Development and Rural Professional Groups Advisory group: Tim Andrews (Stephenson Harwood LLP), Philip Leverton (College of Estate Management), Rob Yorke (rural chartered surveyor), Michael Rocks (Michael Rocks Surveying), Tim Woodward (rural chartered surveyor), Michael Birnie (Buccleuch Estates), Marion Payne-Bird (consultant), Frances Plimmer (FIG – The International Federation of Surveyors), Duncan Moss (Ordnance Survey), Kevin Biggs (Royal Bank of Scotland) The Land Journal is available on annual subscription. All enquiries from non-RICS members for institutional or company subscriptions should be directed to: Proquest – Online Institutional Access E sales@proquest.co.uk T +44 (0)1223 215512 for online subscriptions or SWETS Print Institutional Access E info@uk.swets.com T +44 (0)1235 857500 for print subscriptions To take out a personal subscription, members and non-members should contact licensing manager Louise Weale E lweale@rics.org

Published by: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Parliament Square, London SW1P 3AD T +44 (0)24 7686 8555 www.rics.org ISSN: ISSN 1754-9094 (Print) ISSN 1754-9108 (Online) Editorial and production manager: Toni Gill Sub-editor: Matthew Griffiths Designer: Nicola Skowronek Creative director: Mark Parry Advertising: Emma Kennedy T +44(0)20 7871 5734 E emmak@wearesunday.com

Sub-Saharan land markets offer opportunities for investors with insight and staying power, Libby Peacock reports from the second RICS Africa Summit

David Inman looks at waste regulations and the potential to save billions of pounds through the re-use of materials

10 Search and find

Simon Davis explains the thinking behind a new platform to help property professionals identify sites for development

12 Jökulhlaup modelling in Greenland

Glacial lake outbursts can be modelled in unprecedented detail to offer lessons for flood prevention, write Duncan Quincey and Jonathan Carrivick

18 Finding the right match

The Fit-For-Purpose approach to land administration enables quick and affordable security of tenure, according to Robin McLaren and Stig Enemark

Milton Silverman draws attention to the hidden impact of EU consumer regulations on surveyors, valuers, estate agents and other professions

24 Leading from the front

RICS is taking the initiative on sustainability and risk management, explains President Martin Brühl

26 The grass is greener

Fly-grazing horses are on the increase and they can delay the sale of development land, says Sophie Henwood

15 Smarter farmers

The Royal Agricultural University is helping start-ups to develop farming technology, says Camilla Hayselden-Ashby

16 SuDS law

John Williams explains how new research can provide guidance for surveyors involved in costing and valuing sustainable urban drainage systems

Design by: Redactive Media Group Printed by: Page Bros

While every reasonable effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of all content in the journal, RICS will have no responsibility for any errors or omissions in the content. The views expressed in the journal are not necessarily those of RICS. RICS cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage suffered by any person as a result of the content and the opinions expressed in the journal, or by any person acting or refraining to act as a result of the material included in the journal. All rights in the journal, including full copyright or publishing right, content and design, are owned by RICS, except where otherwise described. Any dispute arising out of the journal is subject to the law and jurisdiction of England and Wales. Crown copyright material is reproduced under the Open Government Licence v1.0 for public sector information: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6 3

RICS L and JO U RN A L

Ch air m en

FROM THE

CHAIRMEN Env i r on me n t & reso ur c e s

Andrew

Fitzherbert MRICS

In June, I will be stepping down from the RICS board dealing with waste and minerals after 16 years. Stephen Makenna, who has a background in town planning and regeneration, will be taking over from me. He is keen to push the connections between environmental and minerals surveyors.

Over the past five years, I have helped to keep our conferences relevant and well attended. These meetings offer a chance to work, network with colleagues from across the UK or maintain your CPD. The board will also be helping to put on the October event, so your views will be welcome. Regarding our other work, Gareth Powell and Tim Elliott are involved in the APC update for our pathways and may be creating a Lands Group pathway.

The review of RICS professional groups, PG 20/20, is under way and all will be given a clearer role and mandate.

Your board will ensure that appropriate professional standards are in place.

RURA L

Gerard

Smith FRICS

I am delighted to take over as Chairman of the Rural Board and, on behalf of all rural members, extend my thanks to the outgoing Chair John Lockhart for his enthusiasm and dedication. John, along with several other members, has now retired from the board.

I look forward to working with the board on behalf of the rural membership. If there is something you would like us to consider, 4 M ay/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

or you feel specific guidance or advice is needed in a particular area of practice, please let us know and we will discuss it.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at our largest annual rural conference in Cirencester on 15 June, where John Varley of Clinton Devon Estates is our keynote speaker. The conference will address key themes and feature updates from Jeremy Moody on the agricultural sector and insights into affordable rural housing from our former president Michael Newey.

The keynote speaker at the RICS Wales Breakfast at the Royal Welsh Show in July is the Environment and Rural Affairs Advisor from the National Farmers’ Union Cymru, who will speak on climate change and flood mitigation.

We are working on the development of new guidance and updates for members.

For further details, please contact Fiona Mannix, Associate Director of the Land Group, on: n fmannix@rics.org

Land & Resources Global board

Barney

Pilgrim FRICS

Articles in this issue continue to underline the global nature of our sectors, the importance of working with other groups such as the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG), the World Bank and UN agencies, as well as with land and resources members across the world.

The second RICS Africa Summit was held in South Africa in February, and the report from former Land Journal editor Libby Peacock highlights the growing importance of this event. Board member Ruth Adams FRICS and Chris Wynn-Williams, who works on the International Land Measurement Standards, brought out the importance of land issues to a very high-level audience.

In the same vein, I would commend the article of the new Fit for Purpose (FFP)

strategic document published by UN-Habitat, FIG and Kadaster. The authors, board member Robin McLaren FRICS and Prof. Stig Enemark HonRICS, give us an insight into the concepts driving FFP, which are becoming mainstream and are being integrated into major land administration initiatives across the world. Incremental improvement, flexibility and a focus on security of tenure are the key components of this approach, as is creating an environment of ‘secure enough’ land and property rights.

These FFP drivers are a key part of the international standards programme.

RICS was well represented at the recent World Bank Land & Poverty conference in Washington DC, where FFP and the need for global land standards were again voiced as vital foundations for functioning land and property systems.

Geomat i cs

Gordon

Johnston FRICS

One of the motivations for being an RICS member is the chance to make a positive difference. The RICS has been busy, publishing key guidance and standards initiatives such as the International Property Measurement Standards (IPMS), which was made mandatory for RICS-regulated valuation surveyors at the start of this year. The IPMS illustrates the importance of collaboration and cooperation to develop common global standards. Similar initiatives, including one focusing on ethics, will follow.

Ethics can be viewed as a limitation, but they are of critical importance to the professional. This will be among topics discussed at the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Working Week, 2–6 May, in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Of particular interest will be the effects of the 2011 earthquake and the subsequent rejuvenation and rebuilding of the city.

RI CS Land JO UR NAL

UPDATE The immediate challenge for surveyors in such disasters is to re-survey, assess and re-evaluate the land, buildings and infrastructure. The RICS will be well represented at the event across the various FIG Commissions.

Meanwhile, the UK-based GeoBusiness exhibition and conference is being held on 24–25 May at London’s Business Design Centre. Amanda Clack, the RICS President-elect, will deliver a keynote.

Pla n n i n g & Deve lop me n t

Paul

Collins MRICS

The RICS is reviewing the APC in terms of both content and process, and a final set of proposals is due for approval over the remainder of this year. Competencies relating to planning and development (P&D) are up for review. We can add to, subtract from and amend these in the light of current practice and try to futureproof the content. This will first go to the P&D board and then to APC assessors. It also has implications for universities that provide graduates with the baseline knowledge and skill for employment.

One challenge that continues to have an impact on whether candidates come forward for P&D as opposed to commercial, residential or valuation APCs is whether they think they know enough and have been engaged in planning activity sufficient for level 3.

Conversations with graduate land-buyers have substantiated this. One proposal is whether to split the planning competency into policy and plans and another focusing on development control/management – and whether it would be sufficient to pick up via the purchase and sale competency.

Any assessors or P&D members and practitioners with views, please email me on paul.collins@ntu.ac.uk Finally, the P&D-focused conference is in London on the 30 June. Details are available on the RICS website.

RICS CPOs in Practice Roadshows Surveyors are often asked to undertake a compulsory purchase order (CPO) instruction on behalf of a client, be they a claimant or an acquiring body. With upcoming work on High Speed 2 and the government’s plan to boost infrastructure to enable growth, there will be a huge demand for surveyors who understand the compulsory purchase process and can give expert advice to their clients.

Roadshows will be held at locations throughout April and in the first week of May: bb Norton Park, Winchester, 19 April bb Royal York, York, 21 April bb Telford Golf & Country Club, Telford, 26 April bb Holiday Inn, Cambridge, 28 April bb Park Royal Hotel, Warrington, 4 May. n www.rics.org/uk/footer/rics-cpos-in-practice-roadshow/

Schools on the map The Digimap for Schools service has signed up 1,000 secondary schools.

The mapping system, which was developed by EDINA, the University of Edinburgh’s data library, gives hundreds of thousands of pupils in the UK access to the latest Ordnance Survey (OS) digital data, including the most detailed maps of the nation through OS MasterMap. More than 1,450 primary schools are already signed up.

Elaine Owen, Schools Manager at OS, said: “We have invested in a number of updates and modifications in the last two years. The introduction of historic mapping layers from the 1890s and 1950s is proving very popular, enabling teachers and pupils to compare changes in the landscape.” n http://digimapforschools.edina. ac.uk

RICS Standards publications New standards being published by RICS include: bb Valuation of mineral bearing land and waste management sites (2nd edition) – 15 April bb Valuation of land for affordable housing – 25 April.

Conference dates RICS CPD Day Exeter, 5 May nwww.rics.org/southwestcpd RICS Rural Mid-Session Conference, Perth, 12 May Scotland’s rural sector will be undergoing some crucial changes in the form of the Land Reform Bill, due to be enacted by May, while consultation concluded on the Land Use Strategy 2016–2021 at the end of January.

RICS Rural Mid-Session conference is perfectly timed to discuss how these changes could affect you and your clients’ business plans. n www.rics.org/scotlandrural RICS CPD Day Cardiff, 8 June n www.rics.org/walescpd RICS Rural Conference Cirencester, 15 June n www.rics.org/ruralconference RICS Diversity and Inclusion Conference Hilton Bankside, London, 29 June This year’s conference will look at practical examples and case studies and move forward the discussion on our Inclusive Employer Quality Mark n www.rics.org/diversityconference

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

A f rica

A continent of hope There are opportunities in sub-Saharan land markets for investors with insight and staying power, Libby Peacock reports from the second RICS Africa Summit

E

conomic woes in emerging markets have had an undeniable impact on development in sub-Saharan Africa, the summit in Johannesburg heard.

But while investors need to do their homework before they venture in, the market is still growing. The best opportunities are presented in East Africa as well as in private finance initiatives and public–private partnerships.

The event concentrated on sub-Saharan Africa’s shift in economic growth and the progress of sustainable investment, market credibility and securing business. Attendees included important players in property and investment, in addition to academics and government representatives.

While sub-Saharan economies have seen “significant headwinds”, this had been a problem across emerging markets – and a temporary one at that, because the fundamentals were strong, suggested Nnema Byrd, investment principal at asset manager Stanlib’s Africa Direct Property Development Fund.

In 2000, the region was seen as the poorest in the world, but it was now home to “the next billion consumers”, with disposable income rising, political changes, rapid urbanisation and people demanding more technological and consumer goods, she said. Although policy bottlenecks still hampered growth, Africa remained “a continent of hope”.

Facilitators and delegates at the land sessions said that access – both to the land and to information regarding its ownership – remained a major obstacle.

Infrastructure, land rights and tenure were also major challenges, and there was no universal solution.

Land rights Delegates pointed out that, in Africa, land meant belonging to a community and that 6 maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

on many parts of the continent customary land rights were still in place.

It was important to realise that while “every single piece of land” in Africa belonged to somebody, the people living on it were not necessarily aware of who owned it, said Martin de Beer MRICS, land surveyor at Swaziland-based MnS Group and member of the RICS Global Geomatics Professional Group Board.

Surveyor-General: Eastern Cape Chris Williams-Wynn told how he had come across land in the province that had been claimed by Queen Victoria but now had “seven different layers of people saying they have rights to the land” – from the chief and headman in the area to the community, private companies and the municipality. This illustrated the importance of administrating land rights.

Ruth Adams FRICS, of the RICS Global Resources Strategy Board, explained that the organisation was participating in a number of global initiatives, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests (as discussed in Land Journal March/April 2016, pp.20–21), the International Property Measurement Standards and the International Land Measurement Standards.

Ada Mwangola, Acting Director of Social and Political Pillars for Kenya Vision 2030, agreed that problems came where there was no title.

Participants said the solution lay in transparency, land registration systems that were maintained, partnerships with communities and access to information.

Investment support Nnema Byrd, addressing the summit on developing the regional market to improve investment, pointed out the importance of specialised training, transparency and data to “connect the dots”, make predictions and reassure investors.

Outside South Africa, capital markets in sub-Saharan Africa were insufficient

k (Above) Nnema Byrd addresses the summit (Top) Panel discussion covered various issues to meet equity and debt needs and this compounded investor fears, she said.

Unlocking the value of land contributed hugely to GDP and, to achieve this in Africa, countries needed to create “something desirable” in which to invest.

Organisations such as RICS could help to promote standards and transparency, she proposed. Chris Williams-Wynn added that proper standards and procedures also reduced the potential for corruption.

Kganya Kgare, emerging markets economist at Stanlib, told delegates that East Africa had done something right: investing in infrastructure when commodity prices were high. The reason for success in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia was “deliberate planning and execution of planning”.

The Ethiopian government, for example, Images © Dominic Barnardt

RI CS Land JO UR NAL

“ In 2000, the region was seen as the

poorest in the world, but it is now home to “the next billion consumers”

fundamentals were there in the long term, but volatile currencies were a risk factor.

It was important to establish industries that ensured the retention of labour and prevented a brain drain.

Ada Mwangola spoke about Kenya’s development blueprint and its flagship projects related to housing, including the formation of planning standards, skills development and public–private partnerships. She said the country was expecting 60 million people to be living in urban centres by 2030. “We want to address the backlog in housing to make cities in Kenya meaningful and well planned,” she said.

Standards and sustainability

has achieved “every one of its plans that have led to continued growth”, while Botswana was a “shining light”, with its low debt, good regulations and security of tenure. South Africa, on the other hand, was a star at planning but lacking in terms of execution.

The availability of local-currency leases, plenty of real estate in private hands and an established platform for investors in East Africa also helped, added Anthony Lewis, Director, sub-Saharan African Capital Markets at consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle. He noted that uncertainty around US dollar leases was a primary concern for markets in West Africa, but the continent was still an exciting place to be with “incredible opportunity in the long term”.

Discussing strategies for long-term, sustainable investment in the region’s real-estate market, Lewis said that with the cycle turning, developers would need to develop sustainable schemes.

Human capital RICS Chief Executive Sean Tompkins stressed that Africa had a competitive advantage in the form of its young population, compared with ageing populations in the rest of the world, and he asked how the continent would use this asset.

Rand Merchant Bank Africa analyst Neville Mandimika noted that the

The difference between successful and unsuccessful markets revolved around the standards in place, noted Mark Walley, RICS Regional Managing Director for EMEA. RICS could play a role in helping to set standards and regulate them, and also provide education to address the skills gap. Sustainability – what was used to build and how building was executed – was an important factor. Standards backed by regulation would give the markets confidence, and those who helped build the capacity of the youth would be the winners, he said.

Discussing the need for more housing, Thomson Reuters Head of Business Development in sub-Saharan Africa Gasant Jacobs said self-funding models offered better chances of success. With the private sector not so interested in low-cost housing, governments had a role to play. However, there was often a “disconnect” in the built environment: “The industry is regulated, but you still see buildings collapsing,” he pointed out.

Commenting on regulatory issues and efficiency, Jacobs said the first point for getting approval for anything was at the municipal level – and that this was often where things fell apart. He cited the city of Cape Town as a success story, with more than 99% of its own revenue collected as a result of carrying out its valuation role efficiently.

Land was a very limited commodity and landownership in South Africa, for example, worked in a very different way

from Kenya or Rwanda, Jacobs added.

His message to commercial investors was that Africa had a very young population, so retail spending capability would increase over time. There was every incentive for local government to encourage people to build.

Creating value Francois Viruly, Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town’s Department of Construction, Economics and Management, agreed that local government had two roles to play: creating value, through planning schemes for instance, and capturing it, usually through valuation: “If municipalities are not able to capture that value, it doesn’t find its way back into society.” He emphasised that every country in sub-Saharan Africa was different, but the markets were evolving and maturing fast.

“It’s important that the built environment is a means to an end – to help societies prosper,” said Sean Tompkins, adding that there wasn’t a perfect system anywhere in the world. It was important to create an environment where government, regulators and professional bodies held each other to account, and RICS could help bring a voice to the professions.

Tompkins said a shared data source and a way of ensuring that data flowed between professions would change the outlook for investment in sub-Saharan Africa, since there was the opportunity to do so but a perception that transparency and data were lacking.

Professional bodies had a role to play, to “set the competencies to ensure that we’re creating the workforce for the future”, he concluded. C

Libby Peacock is a former editor of Land Journal and is now a freelance journalist based in Johannesburg libby.peacock@gmail.com

Related competencies include Cadastre and land management, Management of the natural environment and landscape, Planning

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

C irc u lar econo m y

David Inman looks at waste regulations and the potential to save billions of pounds by re-using materials

Savings from waste

The historic rationale for a linear economy is to make, to use and to dispose.

However, society needs to keep materials in use for as long as possible before disposal to extract their maximum value, and then to recover and regenerate materials and products at the end of their serviceable lives.

This process is known as the circular economy.

With an increasing global population leading to greater demand being placed on linear resources, material prices will rise and materials themselves become scarce.

Waste and the circular economy The legal definition of “waste” in the UK has been in place for over three decades and is now also embedded in EU law, but its application in waste management still prompts much debate.

Under the 2008 Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC), the legal definition of waste is: “any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard”, and it is this intention to discard a substance or 8 M aY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

object that is at the heart of our legal requirements.

The definition is very important because the classification of substances as waste is central to waste management policy, which applies legal controls to protect both the environment and human health. The UK legal framework, while challenging in technical terms, is there to support the minimisation of waste and to offer such protection.

Waste stops being waste once it has been processed, recovered or disposed of in a legally permitted way. Until this point, producers and handlers have a legal duty that includes storing it safely and securely, holding a permit to do so or to treat, transport or dispose of it.

Applying these principles

to the construction industry and the circular economy, waste can be regarded as a resource if a project’s waste management is properly planned and executed. If, on the other hand, waste is only considered later in the project’s timescale, this can often increase cost and the risk of legal issues from unforeseen problems.

The regulator for waste management in the UK varies by country: in England it is the

Environment Agency, in Wales, Natural Resources Wales, in Scotland, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, and in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The legal requirements in England and Wales are similar, as are those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but all of them follow EU law.

In the most straightforward terms, if as a non-domestic waste producer you use waste as a resource or material, store it or dispose of it, you will need a legal exemption for activities determined to be lower in risk by the regulators, or an environmental permit for higher-risk or larger waste management activities. It is therefore sensible to consult environmental regulators as early as possible in a project.

The waste hierarchy EU law requires that member states must apply a hierarchy that identifies waste management options and ranks them in order of environmental impact, as shown in Figure 1.

The most sustainable and environmentally friendly option for waste management

“ The EU estimates that net

savings for businesses from waste prevention, ecodesign, re-use and similar measures will be €600bn

Images © Alamy

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Figure 1 The waste hierarchy

- Prevention of waste production - Preparing a substance or object for re-use - Recycling – Other means of recovery, e.g. energy recovery – Disposal

is to reduce the amount of waste being produced in the first place. This can be done through careful design and by looking into the use of alternative materials.

Waste management is a key challenge for all organisations in terms of cost, resources and legal compliance.

Robust waste management arrangements can help fulfil the legal duty of care and avoid prosecutions, in addition to saving money. The rising costs of waste management, including landfill tax, can result in increased financial pressure as well.

While legal compliance must be a priority, minimising the waste produced and diverting waste from landfill can save money. Landfill tax in the UK is £2.65 per tonne for non-contaminated inert waste and £84.40 per tonne for other wastes, including active or contaminated wastes, as of 1 April 2016 This is on top of haulage costs and the actual cost of landfilling. Diverting waste from landfill can save money, while materials arising from recycling or recovery can have a value in themselves.

The European perspective The EU’s strategy for a circular economy aims to boost competitiveness, create jobs and generate sustainable growth by “closing the loop”.

The Union is providing €650m

Lower environmental impact

Higher environmental impact

funding under the Horizon 2020 programme and €5.5bn to fund implementation.

As well as revising recycling and landfill targets, the current European Commission’s mandate is to: bb halve food waste by 2030 bb develop quality standards for secondary raw materials bb develop a working plan for ecodesign bb revise agricultural regulations to allow greater use of organic and waste-based fertilisers bb develop a strategy on plastics in the circular economy, addressing recyclability, biodegradability, the presence of hazardous substances in plastics and the Sustainable Development Goal for significantly reducing marine litter bb agree a series of actions on water re-use, including a legislative proposal on minimum requirements for the re-use of wastewater.

Businesses and consumers can start the transition to a stronger and more circular economy by recycling more waste and re-using more materials. While maximum value should be extracted from raw materials, products and waste, increased benefits are also gained from saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The EU estimates that net savings for businesses from

waste prevention, ecodesign, re-use and similar measures will be €600bn, or 8% of annual turnover, which will cut total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2–4%.

Constructing a circular economy To focus specifically on the built environment, construction waste – including demolition waste – represents one of the largest waste streams in Europe, totalling 500 million tonnes per year, equivalent to one tonne per person in the EU. Not only does this mean that traditional construction materials go to waste, other valuable materials are not always identified and recovered.

To address this, the European Commission aims to ensure recovery of valuable resources and also that adequate waste management processes are in place in the construction and demolition sector. It is thus developing pre-demolition guidelines to boost high-value recycling, while voluntary recycling protocols will be designed to improve quality assurance for recycled construction materials. At the end of life, buildings or infrastructure may be demolished or dismantled and materials re-used somewhere else, or they may be refurbished, so the most appropriate option must be considered in each case.

Demolition must be addressed in design as the by-products can create a useable material, and it should be ensured that there are no unhealthy or toxic materials in the building. This may seem like tomorrow’s problem – especially as some construction projects result in assets that will last for hundreds of years – but we must address it now.

There are many examples of projects that use recycled materials, and the subsequent structure can be recycled again with remaining elements being used for another project. Modular construction enables this, but again, the potential for doing so has to be identified during design.

Often, the most complex approach is adapting a building for another use, which may involve some demolition. But a good example of this is the former Rail House in Manchester, UK, a 1960s office block adjacent to Piccadilly Station used by British Rail. This had stood vacant for some time and suffered from dated design, poor thermal performance and asbestos contamination.

In 2010, however, the building was stripped back to its original concrete frame, on which a new office development was built; this has since won an “Excellent” BREEAM rating. It is doubtful whether British Rail’s original architect considered that the concrete frame could be left in situ – but re-use of materials and building components is nevertheless one way to help create a circular economy. b

David Inman FRICS is a chartered environmental surveyor at DIEM Ltd davidinman@diemltd.co.uk

Related competencies include Sustainability

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

P lanning

Simon Davis explains the inspiration for a new platform to help property professionals identify sites for development

L

Search and find and agents invest a great deal of time and resources into identifying and investigating possible sites for development, and many searches go nowhere.

This means much of their hard work goes to waste, their targets can be difficult to hit and they don’t get to spend as much time making deals as they would like.

While a lot of the information vital to assessing a site’s suitability is available from various sources, these have until now had to be accessed and searched manually and individually.

Finding out who owns a site, how vulnerable it is to flooding, its estimated value and related planning and traffic data could take hours, if not days, and may involve contacting everyone from the Environment Agency to the Department for Transport, Companies House to the local authority. More often than not, easy access to critical data such as the exact footprint of a building can prove impossible.

This can be a frustrating and time-consuming process for one site, let alone hundreds. As there was no single platform that allowed easy site searches and immediate access to key data, my brother Paul and I decided to build one in house, originally for use in the company we co-founded, Assured Property Group.

Positive learning Working with the University of Warwick to gain access to a supercomputer and support from PhD students, we developed a practical application that we then decided to refine for use by the wider industry through Nimbus Property Services.

Nimbus Maps in a nutshell For every site in England and Wales, users have access to: bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb bb

full address including postcode historic sale prices for residential property corporate ownership details real-time residential valuations environmental data site measurement historical sales prices local planning information listed buildings status demographic data building footprints traffic flow Valuation Office Agency (VOA) link.

1 0 M ay/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

“ It allowed us to make significant and interesting advances in the field of urban science

Called Nimbus Maps, it is the first machine learning platform for property professionals. It takes an array of unstructured, inaccessible data sources and makes them easy to search, analyse and understand. It can also recognise and learn from patterns in data without being explicitly programmed.

The university’s expertise in this field enabled us to fill gaps in the data. Traffic flow data, for example, is only available for 76% of roads, but by using machine learning to analyse this, the system gave data for the 24% of remaining roads.

Professor Stephen Jarvis, who collaborated on the project, said: “It allowed us to make significant and interesting advances in the field of urban science, which together we have applied to the real estate sector. We are looking forward to continuing to develop this technology.”

The result of the collaboration is a unique analysis tool, with over 85 different datasets that can process vast amounts of information and enable an unprecedented understanding of the property features and opportunities relating to any specific site. In other words, it provides the science that can back up the instincts of those in the industry.

Licensing of data from the Land Registry and wrapping data layers around each of its titles is vital to the platform, and marks a first for the industry. It gives users instant access to much more information than the title alone with just one click.

Users can also add Land Registry title plans and registers to their ‘basket’ and check out just once when they are ready. The requested documents are emailed to them immediately, as well as being stored in their online account for future reference.

Valuable output Nimbus Maps has revolutionised how our team works. Because it has been designed by property professionals for property professionals it has more value for them, rather than simply deluging them with data for data’s sake. It offers a ‘sixth sense’ about whether the site or building is the right one.

Based in Google Maps, with its familiar search functionality, mapping style and view options, the system can generally be picked up in about half an hour. Using the Google-driven intelligent search function, users just type a postcode, town or place of interest and a map appears pinpointing the location and showing, on an overlay, the boundaries of every individual site in a defined radius of up to 1km. They can then interrogate the system according to their needs.

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k Sample screen showing how the Nimbus map tool works By clicking on a site, users can see the full address, Land Registry title number, the owner’s details (although data protection prevents disclosure of private owners), the last selling price and real-time residential valuation. Direct links to other information on the site mean that in seconds users can see its planning history or the owner’s accounts at Companies House.

Some data not previously available through desk-based research, though still important given the time it takes to collect manually, has also been added to the list of searchable variables such as precise site size and building footprint. This is possible as we have measurements for every single ground floor of every building for each of the Land Registry’s 18 million freehold titles.

Mobile visibility Nimbus Maps also enables anyone out and about with a mobile phone or tablet to click on their location and see all the chosen variables for that site. The system additionally allows a company – or a competitor or potential investor – to visualise and interrogate all the sites it owns across the country, simply by typing the firm’s number into the search bar.

Recently, we sought to identify all sites of around an acre in size owned by two businesses going through a merger. There were 470 sites of more than an acre, and a total of 593 acres surplus to requirements. Calculating the average residential value per square foot for each site and assuming the same

standard development densities, we were quickly able to identify opportunities for significant value creation.

Another development in progress is to offer real-time valuation of commercial sites, which will be helpful for commercial land agents and companies with large estates.

Continuous development We have more data that could be brought into the system and are keen to hear from users about the features and functionality they would like to see on the platform so we can introduce them.

We have only scratched the surface of what Nimbus Maps can do and plan to do even more to give the property industry the transparency and technology it needs to search residential and commercial property in the UK quickly and efficiently. b

Simon Davis is co-founder of Assured Property Group and Nimbus Property Systems simon.davis@nimbusproperty.co.uk

For more information or a demonstration of Nimbus Maps contact: 0330 088 3513, info@nimbusproperty.co.uk If land acquisition is like trying to find a needle in a haystack – and it very often is – then Nimbus Maps is like a metal detector.

Paul Davis, Nimbus Property Systems

Related competencies include Mapping, GIS, Planning

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Flooding

Jökulhlaup modelling in Greenland

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Duncan Quincey and Jonathan Carrivick report on how glacial lake outbursts can be modelled in unprecedented detail, offering lessons for flood prevention

he largest floods ever to have occurred on Earth are known to have been outbursts from glacial lakes, and they continue to threaten many towns and villages downstream of ice-sheet margins and mountain glacier termini.

Outburst floods are increasing in both frequency and magnitude, but modellers and flood prevention engineers trying to predict inundation levels now have a new tool at their disposal.

Structure from Motion (SfM) provides hyperscale landscape models with unlimited temporal frequency and centimetric point density and accuracy, offering unprecedented detail with which to model flood events. The models are based on images acquired by nothing more than a standard compact camera.

In western Greenland, outburst floods or jökulhlaups are a relatively common phenomenon. Some ice-dammed lakes that abut the margin of the Greenland ice-sheet drain periodically, following a cycle that is characterised by between five and 10 years of discrete drainage events and subsequently long periods – in excess of a decade – of lake refilling. One such lake near the town of Kangerlussuaq, or in Danish Sondre Stromfjord, recently started a jökulhlaup cycle after a 20-year period of inactivity.

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Tourist roads, major bridges and even a 20-tonne mechanical excavator have all fallen victim to this latest round of sudden and unpredicted floods.

Resolving the data Despite the clear impact that these high-magnitude events have on people, property and infrastructure, models of flood progress and extent are often constrained by relatively coarse terrain data. Part of the problem is the inaccessibility of the terrain and the need to make repeated surveys so as to update changes in channel shape from erosion and sedimentation.

These kinds of survey depend on traditional procedures that are both time-consuming and expensive to carry out. Remote and automated approaches for acquiring reliable topographic data can therefore prove particularly valuable in such terrain.

Most people are already familiar with airborne and terrestrial laser scanning and the quality of earth surface elevation data that these approaches can supply.

But the cost of the technology is restrictive for most research projects, with short-term rental charges running into thousands of pounds even before data processing has begun.

l Model of a gorge

bubbling water

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SfM is an image-based method that has come to prominence in geoscientific applications over the last five years, being low in cost, flexible in terms of data acquisition requirements and easy to run through post-processing. The accuracy and density of the resulting digital elevation data are also routinely comparable with those acquired by terrestrial laser scanners.

The application uses images acquired from multiple viewpoints to determine the three-dimensional geometry of a surface, a method that diverges significantly from traditional photogrammetry in two main ways. First, it uses a new generation of image-matching algorithms that allow for unstructured image acquisition – indeed, SfM typically uses hundreds of images to model a terrain surface rather than just several, as in traditional photogrammetry.

Images © Duncan Quincey

Second, ground control points (GCPs), which are used to scale and orientate the resulting point-cloud data, are introduced as one of the final steps in the photogrammetric process rather than one of the first. This means the final quality of the digital elevation model relies less on the quality and distribution of those GCPs and this can be beneficial in areas that are hard to access with a differential GPS. The SfM processing chain varies slightly between software, but commonly follows several main steps. First, homologous ‘keypoints’ are matched between photographs, so that the basic scene geometry can be constructed.

Second, those keypoints are refined by excluding those that do not conform to a perfect geometric model, then assessing the proximity and relation of the remainder to neighbouring ones.

Camera orientations and geometries and 3D object point coordinates are adjusted iteratively to provide a coarse point cloud.

Third, three-dimensional coordinates are calculated for all pixels in the images used in the scene reconstruction, yielding a dense point cloud that comprises one to two orders of magnitude more points than the coarse cloud. Finally, the 3D model is georeferenced and filtered.

Perhaps the most challenging part of the whole workflow is to capture the appropriate images in the first instance.

Many users fall into the trap of acquiring a large number of images from a handful of places rather than taking single shots at many different locations. Indeed, the algorithm requires the camera’s ‘motion’ so as to resolve the terrain geometry.

This can be quite challenging in remote terrain or areas of extreme topography. n maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6 1 3

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Flooding

n Model answers The flood route in Greenland definitely falls into this category. The bedrock gorges through which the waters flow are deeply incised, and the initial channel even flows under the ice sheet for several hundred metres. Capturing images for SfM in such areas requires remote access, so researchers often use drones or fixed-wing aircraft. Several hundred images later and with a bit of computational wizardry, a full digital elevation model of the flood route can be derived, with a pixel spacing of tens of centimetres and an accuracy comparable to data from a terrestrial laser scanner or by traditional stereo photogrammetry.

With the new digital elevation model (DEM), extreme flows down bedrock gorges that were poorly resolved in the existing topographic data for the flood route can now be simulated. For instance, a bedrock gorge that was represented by 350 pixels in the original DEM is now represented by more than 570,000 data points in the new model. Such detail lets researchers identify individual boulder clusters and even detect relatively subtle hydrological scour features on a scale of centimetres or decimetres.

The model used to simulate floods in western Greenland is open-source, 2D, and can fully describe the motion of water. It can also incorporate sediment transport and changing bed morphology, which many models are not sufficiently sophisticated to do. Assumptions must be made about the bed topography of the channel because SfM cannot resolve surfaces underwater, particularly if the water is turbulent and the bed is not visible. Yet the resulting photorealistic point clouds generated by the SfM workflow and the hydraulic modelling are powerful aids to understanding and communicating the phenomena.

It is easy, for example, to visualise how rapid transitions in flow regime can occur, from deep flow to flows drawn down over a lip to form a near-vertical thin sheet or waterfall. It is equally obvious how a plunge pool and a stopper wave may exist beneath a waterfall, with these represented in the model as discrete zones of super-elevated and deep water.

As the flood progresses into flatter areas and loses velocity, the water begins to ‘bubble up’ due to intense upwelling and recirculation, represented in the model by a rough surface and shallow water.

Benefits The ability to model extreme flows in such fine detail is beneficial for several 1 4 M ay/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

k Drones are needed to capture images for SfM reasons. First, it enables the prediction of areas of inundation with much greater confidence and thus more effective preparation for flooding. The Greenland project demonstrated the benefits of using the finer resolution grid on a relatively sparsely populated section of the jökulhlaup route, but its true benefit could be realised in simulating extreme flows through the more densely populated town of Kangerlussuaq.

Here, the key stakeholders who could benefit include the municipality officials responsible for the town’s infrastructure and water supply, local tourism operators and the airport authorities, because the runway – the gateway to western Greenland – is bordered by the Watson River. Of course, taking this same approach to modelling outburst floods in more populated areas of the world, such as the foothills of the Himalaya, could improve predictions and preparedness for disasters still more markedly.

Second, given the extra detail afforded by the SfM data, the ability to include sediment transfer processes in fluvial modelling is made possible. Previous models have neglected or oversimplified sediment transport and thus failed to offer accurate representations of reality.

Critically, channel geometry changes as a result of sediment transport have been shown to be both intense and rapid, making their inclusion in future numerical simulations a clear challenge for the modelling community.

Finally, by repeating measurements on an annual basis, it becomes possible to make the quantitative assessments of erosion and deposition rates that

are required for models of landscape evolution. Indeed, there are virtually no quantitative data for the geomorphic effect of regular meltwater-fed flows as compared with extreme flood events.

For the cost of a camera, two flights, a tent and a pile of drone batteries, the derivation of such fine-resolution data becomes much more feasible. C

Duncan Quincey is Associate Professor in Geomorphology at the University of Leeds d.j.quincey@leeds.ac.uk Jonathan Carrivick is Senior Lecturer in Geomorphology at the University of Leeds j.l.carrivick@leeds.ac.uk

Smith, MW, Carrivick, JL and Quincey, DJ (2015), “Structure from motion photogrammetry in physical geography”, Progress in Physical Geography.

Smith, MW, Carrivick, JL and Quincey, DJ (forthcoming 2016), Structure from Motion in the Geosciences, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, Analytical Methods in Earth and Environmental Science.

The RICS report that accompanies this work can also be found at http://bit.ly/1pphHdB and the authors are grateful to the RICS Research Trust (grant no. 474) for funding the field data collection.

Related competencies include Remote sensing and photogrammetry, Mapping, Management of the natural environment and landscape

T ec hnolog y

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Smarter farmers

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Camilla Hayselden-Ashby explains how the Royal Agricultural University is helping start-ups develop new farming technology

hen most people imagine a farmer, they picture an individual at the wheel of a tractor or out tending cows.

What they may not be aware of is that the tractor contains the technology to steer itself and that the farmer has decided what treatment the crops require based on drone imagery of the fields.

The farmer may also be tracking the cows’ step count, while smart devices in the herd’s rumens are providing up-to-date information on the health of the animals’ guts. These are simple examples of technologies being used on farms today. We are only just beginning to realise the potential of what can be achieved and the benefits they could offer agriculture.

‘Agtech’ is a significant opportunity to improve results and reduce risk in farming by improving existing systems and devising new methods of food production such as indoor urban farming. It is about being smarter with what is available and helping to ensure food security, sustainability, health and better economic returns.

Responding to such issues has never been more important as we face the challenge of feeding a growing number of mouths from a diminishing area of useable land. Agricultural production will need to increase by 70–100% by 2050 to support 10 billion people. We will also have to manage increasing levels of risk and uncertainty as climate change causes more extreme weather.

For this reason, the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) in Cirencester has established an incubator for agtech start-ups.

Farm491 will provide a state-of-the-art facility where businesses can grow and flourish, and opened its initial ‘hub’ at Easter to house budding businesses. It will recruit more ahead of its official launch in December.

The name of the programme comes from the 491 hectares of Cotswold farmland that will be available to members for research and testing. Start-ups will also have access to farming data, research and equipment, and support from a network that includes farmers, entrepreneurs, business advisors, investors and academics.

Farm491’s Centre Director Angela Simkins said the incubator “will give a focus for the Gloucestershire heartland in the development of agricultural technology”.

Members will be entering a dynamic and rapidly growing sector of the global agricultural industry. Online investment marketplace AgFunder reports that investment in agtech had surpassed $2bn by mid-2015 and is increasing exponentially. It is estimated that precision agriculture alone will be worth $4.5bn by 2020.

The sector is attracting attention from major venture capital firms and technology companies such as Google. The internet giant’s ventures arm has contributed to several high-profile funding rounds, with a $15m investment in data management company the Farmers Business Network, for instance.

Meanwhile, the venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors – founded by Eric Schmidt, Executive Chair of Google’s parent company Alphabet – has launched an initiative called Farm2050 in the USA to foster the burgeoning start-up community.

The potential of these new companies has not been overlooked by established players. Monsanto got into the game early, acquiring agricultural analytics and risk management company the Climate Corporation for $1.1bn in 2013.

The UK government has also made global leadership in agricultural technology, innovation and sustainability a key priority. It identified academic institutions as being essential to success, alongside innovative farmers, food manufacturers and trade networks.

Professor David Hopkins, Dean of Agriculture, Food and Environment at RAU, is passionate about the value of agtech: “The UK is not self-sufficient in terms of food. It is critical we make use of the latest technology to empower farmers.”

A criticism often directed at the tech boom is that 90% of entrepreneurs are focusing on 10% of the problems that technology has the potential to address. Organisations such as Farm491 are vital to help entrepreneurs understand the agriculture sector and support the development of businesses whose products will shape the farms of the future. C Camilla Hayselden-Ashby is Social Media and Marketing Assistant at Farm491 camilla.hayselden-ashby@student.rau.ac.uk

Email: angela.simkins@rau.ac.uk Project website: farm491.com @Farm491 or www.facebook.com/farm491

Related competencies include Agriculture, Sustainability

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S u stainable drainage

New research will provide guidance for surveyors involved in the costing and valuing of sustainable urban drainage systems, says John Williams

SuDS law

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Recent flooding has sparked debate about the best ways to manage risks to developments, and there have been many calls for the wider use of sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS).

However, only 40% or so of new developments in England include SuDS at present, and one of the reasons for this is uncertainty over costing, adoption and valuation compared with conventional piped drainage.

Previous studies of SuDS valuation have highlighted uncertainties and inconsistencies between projects in the boundaries, maintenance costings and lifespan estimates used. In practice, different projects employ different techniques, making comparisons difficult.

As multifunctional green infrastructure, SuDS provides effective drainage by maintaining pre-development hydrology, but offers a range of benefits beyond water quantity management. SuDS can significantly improve water quality and provide a range of other ecosystem services in terms of amenity, habitat, human health and reduced energy use.

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Yet uncertainty over how these benefits are evaluated and who eventually pays for them complicates financial analysis of SuDS. RICS has therefore produced an information note for members to make them aware of the issues around green infrastructure and the externalities of traditional valuation practices.

However, the note does not give stakeholders specific guidance on how to integrate these values effectively into their decision-making.

The issue of valuation and ecosystem services was identified as the main limitation in “Taking SuDS Forward”, the theme of the SUDSnet 2015 conference.

Professional guidance The School of Civil Engineering at the University of Portsmouth has recently been awarded a Natural Environment Research Council green infrastructure innovation grant to work with RICS and other partners over two years to develop professional guidance for surveyors in costing and valuing SuDS. The project partners represent a cross-section of SuDS stakeholders including professional bodies, developers, water companies, designers and local authorities. These include First Wessex, Atkins Global, Hampshire County Council, Southern Water,

the Environment Agency (EA) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. These partners will form a steering group and provide case studies and expertise to inform and direct the project.

Although useful guides have been produced by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) and the EA, there is no standardised professional guidance available for surveyors to help them value the following aspects of SuDS. Construction, adoption and maintenance Several studies have suggested that SuDS has lower construction costs than conventional drainage.

However, consultation with specialist design practices suggests that site-specific factors lead to uncertainties in cost estimates, especially in relation to the boundary between SuDS and public open space.

There are also several maintenance guides, but there is not a standardised process for costing the long-term maintenance of SuDS.

This means that “adoption” of SuDS is often a key issue, as developers are wary of long-term commitments that are often poorly defined.

Legislation has been effective in identifying adoption bodies in Scotland, but changes to the implementation of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 mean there is less clarity in England and Wales.

The University of Portsmouth project will review and assess current methods of costing SuDS construction and whole-life cost, building on the recent work by the EA and the engineering consultancy HR Wallingford, in liaison with quantity surveyors and others involved in the financial planning of SuDS. Complete SuDS projects will be reviewed to compare the predicted costs to actual ones, and also assess impacts associated with uncertain future conditions.

Standardised professional guidance on the costing and valuation of SuDS will be issued to lift a major barrier to its inclusion in developments.

Benefit to development Assessment of the amenity value of SuDS for residents in

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Residents value the high-quality green space that SuDs can provide

Examining sustainable drainage near homes project costings is probably less well defined than maintenance. RICS has just published a draft information paper for surveyors on Placemaking and Value that contains case studies, but it concludes that the current evidence base is “unclear”.

There is some evidence that residents value the high-quality green space that SuDS can provide, and that this translates into quicker house sales or higher house prices. However, there is also evidence of concern from potential residents about the perceived safety and nuisance risks of SuDS. Such concerns could be aggravated in schemes Images © John Williams

that pay less attention to landscaping and maintenance. Designers and consultants have suggested that designs can often be compromised by pressure to minimise the area used for SuDS, due to the uncertainty of valuing amenity and property against maximising return for the development.

This means that either SuDS is not used or is “hard” SuDS such as underground storage rather than green infrastructure. A valuation toolkit to identify the commercial benefits of SuDS would allow its land take to be properly compared with benefit, encouraging the best possible designs.

The University of Portsmouth project will review valuation approaches and collate evidence for on-site SuDS’ financial benefits, that is hedonic pricing, contingency valuations and preventative expenditure.

Case studies with different characteristics and SuDS components will be selected and secondary data on the property market collated.

Residents and local property professionals will be consulted about their perceptions of different SuDS components. This will enable quantification of the value contribution of SuDS in development projects, and better understanding on the part of end users and decision-makers. The data will be analysed to assess SuDS’ impact on property values and produce a recommended valuation approach.

Consideration of Externalities Various projects have aimed to assign a value to the ecosystem services provided

by SuDS and have developed facilities such as the CIRIA Benefits of SUDS Tool (BeST) and the green infrastructure valuation toolkit.

These give valuation estimates as a generic assessment, but who pays for the benefits is often unclear. A recent UK Water Industry Research report has explored how to engage with wider ‘beneficiaries’, including bodies concerned with flood protection, water quality, habitat and health – to increase the likelihood of contributory funding – but this is not yet common practice.

The University of Portsmouth project will devise a framework for how these benefits should be identified by surveyors and developers and then develop communication strategies and interpretative guidance to ensure that this is properly conveyed and residents are aware of the benefits. Case

studies will also be prepared on how to secure funding and identify the benefits from including high-quality SuDS in projects so they can be justified by other means.

Conclusion Common to all the above issues is the uncertainty associated with costing and valuation of SuDS. Given the potential benefits of SuDS, an industry-relevant economic evaluation is vital to justify their inclusion in schemes on a commercial basis.

The toolkit to be produced by the University of Portsmouth project will be disseminated by RICS through conferences, publications and CPD events, and should form the basis of future professional guidance notes.

The valuation of green infrastructure and ecosystem services is an area that is likely to become increasingly important, and the development of legally robust and standardised valuation techniques offer an opportunity for the surveying profession to make a significant contribution to sustainable development. b Dr John Williams is Reader in Environmental Technology in the School of Civil Engineering and Surveying at the University of Portsmouth john.williams@port.ac.uk www.port.ac.uk/sces/

Placemaking and Value http://rics.org/uk/knowledge/ professional-guidance/ information-papers/ placemaking-and-value-1stedition/ on isurv at http://www.isurv.com/site/ scripts/download_info.aspx? downloadID=2040

Related competencies include Planning, Legal and regulatory compliance

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Alison Rickett explains the background to a new land-matching service for England which aims to unlock business opportunities

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Finding the right match

hose in the land sector continue to hear calls for ‘new blood’ mechanisms that can assist business progression and options for existing participants wishing to step back. How do we help create an environment conducive to prospective entrants and those already in the sector?

Those aspiring to enter find that they face an array of barriers. It is therefore essential that stakeholders help to create and promote sustainable opportunities and associated business models to ensure the continuation of a vibrant and progressive land sector.

To help address some of these issues, a new land-matching service is being launched by the Fresh Start Land Enterprise Centre (FSLEC), a community interest company (CIC), with the aim of helping innovation in land-based businesses.

Joint ventures use established legal land agreement structures, including contract farming, licences, share farming, partnerships, conventional tenancies and long-term lets. As a joint venture develops, it can often move from one type of agreement to another. The top 10 things to look at when considering a joint venture are listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Top 10 factors when considering a joint venture Landowners look for

Entrepreneurs look for

Realistic business ideas

The right infrastructure

Under-bidder – registered provider (housing association)

Access to markets

Commitment

A fair deal

Clear communication

Space to develop

Practical proficiency

Opportunities for collaboration

Drive and confidence

Stability

Positive mindset

Experience

Sound financial position

Encouragement

Shared values

A “can do” approach to problem solving

Somebody they get on with

Clarity and consistency

Matching service need

What will the service provide?

Over the years, FSLEC and other organisations have helped to bring together interested parties in an informal manner, working more on the basis of requests coming in at the right time than having a structured approach or nationally recognised point of referral. There has also been an imbalance between supply and demand, with more people seeking opportunities than there are those willing to offer them. But recent feedback from Country Land and Business Association (CLA) members has shown that there are a significant number who may be interested in new ways of working.

The past 10 years have also seen numerous discussions around the need to create some type of matching service. But three things were lacking: bb evidence that a service was required bb information, education and case studies highlighting how it could work bb funding.

The service enables landowners and land agents to register any opportunities they have to offer and entrepreneurs may also register, outlining the type of opportunity they are seeking.

Initial contact by any of these parties will be registration by phone or via the website, and questionnaires will then capture the necessary data for the first filter of the matching element.

FSLEC will facilitate meetings between the parties and provide additional information where required.

FSLEC will make available mentors and training from established businesses and professionals, as well as links to other organisations and sources of help. It will not provide assistance on drawing up agreements, however, with all parties advised to use established professionals for this.

In 2012, the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC) commissioned a feasibility report, supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, finding that such a service was required. The focus then switched to how it should be structured and who would provide it. A second piece of NFYFC research 18 months later found that the development of a pilot service would be the best approach, and FSLEC offered to undertake this.

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Why FSLEC? FSLEC chaired the England service-matching group discussions in 2013 and 2014. It was able to draw on years of expertise in running business academies for new entrants and established farm businesses and, most importantly, it remains neutral, working as a CIC for the farming and land sector. It also builds on the land partnership approach it has helped to develop, outlining the key steps for anyone considering joint ventures.

Funding and fees The Prince’s Countryside Fund and the Frank Parkinson Agricultural Charitable Trust are funding the pilot service, Images © Freshstart

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Case study: Robert and Janet Bostock and Philip Feeney Robert and Janet brought their organic, 700-acre Old Hall Farm near Malpas and their successful breeding herd and Phil brought his enthusiasm and ambition but little capital.

Now, eight years later, Robert has stepped back into a less demanding role in the business, which was one of his main aims, while Philip has bought a good percentage of the milking herd and built up his equity.

How have they done it?

Initially, both parties signed a formal contract where they each received a return on the capital they invested into the joint business. This document outlined, for instance, that Philip would buy the machinery and 25% of the original 320-strong herd. A cow-hire agreement enabled Robert to see a return on his assets while Philip milked the herd and had an agreed share of any surplus left over in the business account. Now the business has grown, the contract farming agreement has been

Case study: John Henderson

John Henderson (left) and David Coates (right) John Henderson saw an opportunity to implement a share-farming scheme at his family’s estate near Skipton during the early 1980s. One of the estate’s previously tenanted dairy farms needed new life breathing into it at the same time as young farmer David Coates, who had grown up on his parents’ tenanted farm elsewhere on the estate, was looking for an opening to set up his own business.

Under John’s guidance, David quickly set about transforming the farm into a thriving business and has never looked back. Today, David share-farms with John across the whole estate.

In 1992, John also recruited a second young farmer to the estate, and by the end of that year Tony Shepherd was up and running with 150 sheep and a suckler herd. John provides, maintains and insures the property while Tony provides labour and machinery. Each runs his own business, with no sharing of the trading or bank accounts. Under the agreement, the split between the two is on a 67%/33% basis.

for which fees will be charged at a low rate. This encourages commitment and value from the service’s users and provides a small income to FSLEC to help cover administration costs.

Practical training FSLEC launched its first Land Partnerships Handbook in 2012.

The second edition, published in 2015, provides the core content for the Land Partnership workshops that outline the benefits and

replaced by a 50/50 equity farming arrangement.

Key to success?

“By purchasing the cows gradually, the herd size didn’t have to decrease, which enabled me to produce enough profits for all parties,” comments Phil. “We now have Robert Bostock (left) and Philip Feeney (right) 700 cows and I own half of them. The other essential ingredient is good communication.”

challenges of different land agreements and joint ventures. These workshops are being run across England and are an excellent introduction for those thinking about this route. Case studies are available and continue to be added, and the FSLEC website offers more information (http://freshstartlandenterprise.org.uk).

Industry support FSLEC set out to create a national advisory group to guide it through the establishment of a service. It works regularly with a wide range of industry organisations on all its projects, including the RICS, the Central Association of Agricultural Volunteers, NFYFC, CLA and the University of Exeter. It also engages with a range of individual farmers. Representatives of industry organisations serve on the advisory group.

Other schemes Similar matching schemes are available elsewhere, such as Land Mobility in Ireland, which is now in its third year, and Venture, part of Farming Connect Wales that was launched earlier this year.

Much of the hard work to get FSLEC up and running is nearly complete, with the full launch due as this issue of Land Journal went to press. However, we still need input from potential users of the service regarding what would work best, and would welcome all suggestions to the contact details below. b

Alison Rickett is Managing Director of FSLEC alison.rickett@freshstartlandenterprise.org.uk

www.freshstartlandenterprise.org.uk

Related competencies include Agriculture

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Tenu re

Setting the world to rights The Fit-For-Purpose approach to land administration enables quick and affordable security of tenure, Robin McLaren and Stig Enemark maintain

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any developed countries have strong institutions and laws to protect citizens’ relationship with land.

Administration services secure and often guarantee rights and support the land markets that underpin modern economies.

However, in most developing countries this is not the case, and 70% of the world’s population has no guaranteed security of tenure. People are excluded from formal land administration systems and cannot register or safeguard their rights. The majority of these are the poor and most vulnerable, who live at constant risk of eviction. This creates significant instabilities and inequalities, undermines better environmental stewardship and deters responsible private investment.

Attempts to secure land tenure by introducing land administration practices from developed countries have failed as a result of weak institutions, inappropriate laws and regulations, high costs, complexity, lack of capacity, inadequate maintenance and long timeframes for implementation; in many cases, these practices only strengthen the elite’s hold on land. New approaches are required to build affordable, scalable and sustainable systems that can help the poor.

Land administration A land administration system provides governments with an infrastructure for securing land tenure rights, determining valuation and taxation of land and managing its use and development. It exhibits the principles of responsible land governance in the framework of national land policies.

and South-East Asia. Many Eastern European countries also established such systems as they underwent transition from centrally planned to market-based economies in the 1990s.

The experiences of these countries have informed the Fit-For-Purpose (FFP) approach. In Rwanda, systematic, nationwide land registration began after piloting in 2009 and was completed in four years.

The parcel boundaries were identified on prints of orthophotos using locally trained land officers acting as trusted intermediaries (see image 1, above right).

This reduced the need for conventional

Figure 1 The FFP concept

Spatial framework: Aerial imageries taken nationwide Participatory field adjudication Incremental improvement Continuum of accuracy

The Fit-For-Purpose approach UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tool Network has recently released the reference document Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration Guiding Principles, written by ourselves and Dr Christiaan Lemmen of the Netherlands’ Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency, Kadaster.

The recently agreed UN sustainable development agenda requires good land governance. New approaches have been tested by implementing nationwide land administration in countries such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, as well as in Central 2 0 maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

surveying techniques to a minimum.

The approach resulted in 10.4 million parcels being registered and 8.8 million lease certificates being issued. The average unit cost was around $6 per parcel, subject to specific national conditions. Benefits are already evident, especially in terms of social stability and economic development, and the national framework of land rights is providing opportunities to raise property-based taxes, improve state land management, increase inward investment and enable better land stewardship.

The FFP approach is shaped by a country’s requirements and does not

Fit-For-Purpose land administration Legal framework: Enshrine FFP approach in law Secure all land rights for all Human rights, gender equality Continuum of tenure

Institutional framework: Holistic, transparent & cost-effective Sustainable IT approach Ongoing capacity development Continuum of services

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m Example from Rwanda showing aerial imagery (left), from which the parcel boundaries are easily identified (right)

Distinctive features

always need the latest technology or costly, time-consuming field surveys.

It can be adapted to different regional topographies and development densities and deal with variations in tenure type.

A nationwide approach encompassing all tenure types and land is then affordable and can be achieved in a reasonable timeframe, depending on the size of the country. Finally, the approach can be sustained by a network of locally trained land officers, who expand the limited number of land professionals.

Key characteristics The three key characteristics to FFP are: a focus on the purpose and how best to achieve it; flexible design to work within constraints; and an emphasis on the perspective of incremental improvement to provide continuity.

1. The purpose. The focus is mainly on ensuring secure tenure for all, and then on how this can be achieved. The phrase “As little as possible – as much as necessary” reflects the FFP approach.

2. Flexibility. FFP is about flexibility in terms of demands for spatial accuracy and for shaping the legal and institutional frameworks to accommodate societal needs as best as possible. FFP also includes the flexibility for different

kinds of tenure, ranging from social or customary tenure to more formal kinds such as private ownership and leasehold.

3. Incremental improvement.

The systems should be designed to meet basic societal needs by balancing the costs, accuracy and time involved.

This creates a “minimum viable product”.

Incremental upgrading and improvement can respond to societal and legal needs and emerging economic opportunities.

The concept There are three core components to FFP: the spatial, legal and institutional frameworks. Each is flexible and can be improved in response to societal needs and financial resources (see Figure 1).

The spatial framework aims to represent the way that land is occupied and used. The scale and accuracy should support security of legal rights and tenure, as well as managing these rights and the use of land and natural resources through the institutional framework.

FFP therefore needs to be enshrined in land law, and the institutional framework must be designed in an integrated, transparent and user-friendly way to administer this regulatory set-up. This administration again requires reliable and up-to-date land information, provided through the spatial framework.

While conventional cadastral systems use documentation of the surveyed land parcels as a basis for entering rights into a land registry, FFP uses aerial or satellite imagery to identify, delineate and adjudicate the visible parcel boundaries, and the rights are determined and registered. This is done by locally trained land officers and involves all stakeholders.

Furthermore, while conventional cadastral systems are highly standardised, the FFP approach is flexible in terms of the accuracy demanded and tenure types to be secured. The land administration system can be upgraded and incrementally improved.

FFP will involve significant change from all stakeholders in the land sector and has to be sensitively managed. There is increasing political pressure for change that can more effectively support the global land agenda and contribute to the global challenges of the 21st century.

Key elements of this are structured testing, knowledge sharing and especially advocacy from global land institutions.

Bodies such as the World Bank, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, UN-Habitat, the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management and the International Federation of Surveyors as well as RICS have key roles. C

Stig Enemark is Professor of Land Management in the Department of Development and Planning at Aalborg University, Denmark enemark@plan.aau.dk Robin McLaren is Director, Know Edge Ltd robin.mclaren@KnowEdge.com www.KnowEdge.com

Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration Guiding Principles http://bit.ly/1QRgoL8

Aims of the guide It is hoped that the UN-Habitat guide will support the implementation of sustainable, affordable land administration systems in developing countries, enabling security of tenure for all and effective management of land use and natural resources. This, in turn, will foster economic growth, social equality and environmental sustainability.

Images © Didier Sagashya, Rwanda

Related competencies include Mapping, Cadastre and land management, Access and rights over land

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

R E GU L ATI O N S

Just think about it

E

Milton Silverman draws attention to the hidden impact of EU consumer regulations on surveyors, valuers, estate agents and many others U directives have had a bad press in the UK over the years. They direct EU member states to implement specific, workable national legislation in line with generalised proposals; but sometimes these directives and the subsequent legislation have effects beyond those envisaged. This is arguably the case with Council Directive 2011/88/EU and similar directives, which aim to protect consumers in respect of contracts negotiated somewhere away from the provider’s business premises, and distance contracts negotiated by email or phone.

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (the regulations) came into force in June 2014 and apply to valuers, estate agents, surveyors, including approved inspectors and many others. They aim to protect vulnerable consumers from pressurised selling where they have no chance to reflect or compare prices. The actual effects are more wide-ranging, however. The regulations do not apply to councils’ building control bodies, who do not have the same contractual relationship with their customers.

The importance of the regulations is that sellers of goods or services to consumers, but not businesses, must provide certain information and documentation and a 14-day cooling-off period from the time of purchase, failing which consumers are entitled to their money back for more than a year afterwards.

The regulations: bb apply only where businesses are selling goods or services to a consumer who is acting in an individual, personal capacity bb require consumers who enter into most distance or off-premises contracts to be provided with a 14-day cooling-off period following their agreement to sign up for or purchase the goods or services bb require provision of information and documentation (detailed in the regulations) that sets out rights to cancellation for the consumer before they are bound by the contract.

Failure to provide the requisite information and cancellation documentation can be a criminal offence, and there are fines and provisions for enforcement. Most importantly, if the service provider does not give such information, the client has the right to cancel an off-premises or distance contract, and reimbursement of any sums paid for one year and 14 days after the time when the cancellation period would otherwise have

Email to clients Dear (client) If, when you have read the information below, you would like me to commence work immediately (specify the work if not already clear from the context), please email me as follows: “I have read the information below, and attached Request for Immediate Commencement (the request). I now ask you to commence work immediately in accordance with the provisions of the request.”

Information for clients Cancellation provisions Where we are acting for you as an individual in your personal affairs (and not in a business capacity) the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 will apply to your engagement of our services. These require us to provide you with certain information when the contract is made.

In this regard, your attention

2 2 maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

is drawn to the consumer provisions and other information below.

You have the right to cancel your engagement of our services (the agreement) within 14 days of the date hereof. You can do so without giving any reason: your attention is drawn to the attached Notice of the Right to Cancel and the Request for Immediate Commencement of Work.

Consumer provisions Our details: bb (name, address and phone number of service provider); our contact email address is the same as that from which this email is sent bb the services we intend to provide are surveyor/valuation services (as applicable) bb the manner in which our fees are calculated and arrangements for payment are set out in the documents enclosed/previously supplied bb the agreement is of indeterminate

duration and it is not possible to set out the exact time by which the services will be fully performed. We shall keep you informed of progress but please contact us if you have any questions relating to the completion of our work. The conditions for termination are set out in our letter of engagement enclosed/previously supplied bb we are RICS members (www.rics.org) and adhere to its code of conduct and complaint-handling service bb you acknowledge that you are aware that we are prevented from starting work on your instruction until after the cancellation period without your consent (see attached Request for Immediate Commencement).

Should you have any complaint concerning our engagement (to include the advice you have been given/fees you have been charged) please contact (name).

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Request for immediate commencement For return to Super Surveyors Co. Ltd If you require us to commence work immediately (specify the work), please email confirming such request or sign and date the form below.

Instructions to commence work immediately To Super Surveyors and Co. Ltd (address and contact details) I hereby instruct you to commence work with immediate effect.

Notice of right to cancel You, the client, have a right to cancel the agreement referred to in the accompanying email within 14 days of the date hereof (the cancellation period). You can do so without giving any reason. To exercise that right, you must inform us (name of organisation, registered, address, phone and email details) in a clear, written statement of your decision to cancel.

You may use the cancellation form below, but this is not obligatory. A dated letter or email to the above address setting out your clear decision to cancel will also suffice. To meet the deadline, your communication must be sent before the cancellation period has expired.

Effects of cancellation If you exercise your right to cancel, we will not undertake any services on your behalf and you will not incur any charges. However, if you request work to begin on your instruction during the cancellation period, and subsequently cancel the agreement after work has started as requested but before the expiry of the cancellation period, we may charge you any fees, disbursements and applicable VAT reasonably incurred during that period.

✂

I am aware of the following: bb I have the right to ask that you do not start work on my behalf until after the 14-day cancellation period; however, I wish you to commence work immediately bb as I have requested work to begin on my instruction during the cancellation period, I will be liable for any fees, disbursements and applicable VAT you may charge me for work reasonably incurred during that period bb in the event that the work is completed by you during the 14-day cancellation period, I will lose my right to cancel.

(Signed and dated by customer)

commenced (i.e. normally 14 days, although only if all is done properly from the beginning). A customer who has not been supplied with the relevant information will not have to pay.

In relation to service providers, there is provision to enable the customer to request that a provider commence work during the cancellation period (effectively waiving the regulations), provided that the requisite information and documentation has been properly supplied. As long as the customer has received the paperwork on their rights relating to the 14-day cooling-off period, they can waive those rights and request immediate commencement.

In 2014, the Supreme Court considered the case of Robertson v Swift [2014] UKSC50. The owner of a removal business failed to supply the relevant information to the customer.

Their Lordships ruled that the owner was not entitled to his outstanding fees and he had to repay the deposit.

It is far better and simpler to get the paperwork organised beforehand, send it to the client and, having received their signed instructions, to commence work.

The statutory information can be set out on two sides of A4; how best to integrate it into your business practice and PR will require more thought.

Suggested sample forms are shown (left and above), but please note they are drafts only, and you should take legal advice prior to using them. b

Cancellation form This is only to be returned if you do not wish us to continue to act for you in respect of your instruction before the end of the cancellation period To Super Surveyors and Co. Ltd I (client name) hereby give notice that I wish to cancel the agreement (dated ‌) for the provision of valuation/survey services (as applicable).

(Signed, dated, printed name and address of signatory)

Milton Silverman is a senior partner at Streathers Solicitors LLP mcsilverman@streathers.co.uk

Related competencies include Client care, Business planning

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

R I C S president

Leading from the front

I

RICS is taking the initiative on sustainability and risk management, explains President Martin Brühl

I have benefitted enormously from RICS over the years. My outlook and career have been substantially shaped by its concepts, standards and ethos.

I wanted to bring new areas of expertise to RICS, to share what I have learned. As President, I have come through the route of practice, not governance.

My experience comes from extensive stakeholder engagement rather than RICS working groups.

I believe that this is the time for RICS to lead on the important issues, both of today and the future. We cannot hope to lead on every issue in our sector, but we can choose to offer leadership in those areas that matter most.

During my Presidential year, I have focused on responsible property investment, and more particularly, the areas of risk management and sustainability. These topics are vitally important and require renewed emphasis.

Risk management As head of global transactions for a fund manager deploying €2.5bn of investment per year, I am acutely conscious of my duty to invest other people’s money responsibly.

This has never been easy, but the present pressures to cut corners are great.

2 4 maY/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

We are operating in a world of historically low interest rates engineered by central banks, greater demand for pension funds in the emerging economies, and a trend towards more fund investment in real estate as an alternative asset class.

My clients traditionally prefer safe investments in the core cities of their home country. But a global market requires us to look beyond core cites and spread investments across geographical regions and diverse assets. The associated risks can never be quantified with complete accuracy – and are only ever an expression of probability.

These topics, and many more, are discussed at the quarterly RICS Global Investment Risk Management Forum. I have established these meetings to bring chief risk and investment officers together. The primary aim is to share our knowledge, to help foster public and market confidence in real estate investment around the world.

RICS has a role to educate and regulate so that risk managers understand the changing nature of risk.

We are ideally placed to make a difference, as an internationally respected professional body. RICS has an opportunity to help foster public and market confidence in real estate investment.

The broader risk we face is to our profession as a whole. It could come from shifts in market practices, from the slow but sure onset of climate change, or from the broader reputational damage that could result from opaque supply chains. The

likelihood of mistakes can be lowered through professional risk management based on technical and professional standards, ethical behaviour and effective regulation.

However, I believe that the answers will not come solely from within our own ranks: specialists can provide insights on topics such as central bank policy and regulation, forecasting and alternative property investment classes. These experts can complement the rich knowledge and experience our profession offers and help us to have greater impact.

Ultimately, standards are the bedrock of our approach to risk, and we must continue to engage the profession constantly to develop and adapt them.

Sustainability Sustainability is a key theme that goes hand in hand with risk management to create responsible businesses.

It has many facets, from protecting the environment to creating a diverse and viable future for our industry, from investing ethically to acting in the public interest.

During my inauguration speech in June 2015, I was delighted to launch a toolkit RICS developed with the UN Global Compact.

Advancing Responsible Business Practices in Land, Construction and Real Estate Use and Investment is a guide for organisations looking to take responsible decisions at every stage of the real estate lifecycle. It translates the Global Compact’s 10 principles on human and labour rights, environmental Image © iStock

protection and anti-corruption into practical steps.

Our long-term relationship with the UN led RICS to COP21 in Paris in December, the annual climate change conference. We are truly leading from the front for the built environment in this arena. The Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction

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111 million people, and is worth more than US$7tr – around 10% of global GDP. We have a clear collective responsibility to take action on climate change.

My message to participants, from an investor’s perspective, was that green buildings attract a premium. They diminish risks for investors and offer occupiers greater certainty about running costs.

COP21 was all about commitments. RICS is in a particularly strong position to make commitments and deliver on them. We already have the mechanisms in place to measure and monitor progress, including our international standards and the know-how of our vast network of RICS professionals operating in more than 145 countries.

We are committing to influence and change the way our sector does business.

Public interest

was launched at the event, a worldwide building sector network backed by the governments of France, Germany, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Cameroon and Senegal among others. RICS is the only professional body on the list of initiating partners.

At COP21, we focused on how collective action and

commitments could support the international climate agenda. The World Bank estimates that 70% of the world’s wealth is bound up in real estate. Buildings account for 40% of global energy consumption and one third of greenhouse gas emissions.

UN statistics estimate that the building sector employs

Risk management and sustainability are strongly linked to RICS’ public interest remit. In the run-up to our 150th anniversary in 2018, we have been reconsidering what the public interest means in the present day.

RICS’ founders defined the public interest in our Royal Charter by talking of “usefulness” and public “advantage”. But these are words of their time. To the Victorians, usefulness was grounded in a prevailing moral philosophy, that of utilitarianism. It focused on maximising the utility of all individuals to achieve the greatest happiness for as many as possible.

But are the wishes of the majority always synonymous with the public advantage?

And is the public interest purely a human concept, or does it have ecological and environmental dimensions too?

We have been asking stakeholders what the public interest means to them throughout my Presidential year

and have received a range of thought-provoking responses.

There is a strong idea that public interest does include environmental dimensions.

Becoming more sustainable can work in the interests of both investors and the wider public. By investing in sustainability now, assets are more assured of value in the future. Others have noted that sites can have different types of value. Land that may have limited value on the open market, for instance a public open space, can have great value in terms of societal benefit. There needs to be a better understanding of this type of value.

Still others have commented that taking care of the public interest also represents enlightened self-interest. Complying with laws and regulations is not always enough. If we act against the public interest but in line with the law, would we be happy for such activities to be reported in the media?

Most likely we would not.

It is unlikely that codes of professional conduct or standards of ethics will be adequate to define the public interest. There also remains a question about how individual professionals can be expected to judge in practice what is in the public’s best interests, not least as they rarely – if ever – have access to all the relevant information.

Let’s continue to lead on the important issues for our sector today and in the future.

We have much to add, but also to learn, to meet our public interest commitments and deliver on our promise of professionalism. b

Martin Brühl is RICS President m.bruehl@rics.org

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RICS L and JO U RN A L

D evelopm ent

Fly-grazing horses are on the increase and they can delay the sale of development land, says Sophie Henwood

The grass is greener

Delays when selling or purchasing properties are frustrating for buyers and sellers. The last thing either party wants to discover is a horse unexpectedly grazing on the site. But this is what faced us recently when two horses were found on our client’s development plot on the day of completion. The practice, known as fly-grazing, sees chancers attempting to graze their horses on private or public land without the landowner’s permission.

Fly-grazing is becoming widespread throughout the UK, with charities estimating that more than 3,000 horses are fly-grazed in England.

This is linked to the falling cost of buying a horse and the increasing expense of keeping them. It is not only of concern for the welfare of horses, however, but also to landowners – particularly at the time of a sale, when they need to give their purchasers vacant 2 6 M ay/ J U N E 2 0 1 6

possession. Consequentially, sellers should be vigilant, and buyers should instruct surveyors to look for signs of horses at the property on their first inspection.

Where an unauthorised horse is found on site, delays can be avoided at completion by following proper procedure.

Until May 2015, the legal ‘teeth’ for dealing with fly-grazing lacked an adequate bite. But this situation has since changed. If a private landowner discovers an unauthorised horse on their property, the procedure to remove the horse is as follows.

1. The horse may be detained by the landowner. While the horse is being held in this way, it must be given adequate food and water.

2. Within 24 hours of detaining the horse, a landowner must give notice of the detention to the officer in charge of the local police station, and if the person detaining the horse knows to whom it belongs, they must also be given notice.

3. The right to detain the horse ceases if, within 96 hours of holding it, the person entitled to possession of the horse claims it and pays enough money to satisfy any claim made by the landowner for damage done by the

horse to the land or to the landowner’s property, and in respect of any expenses that the landowner has incurred in keeping the horse.

4. If the horse is still held by the landowner after 96 hours (excluding weekends and bank holidays), ownership of the horse passes to the landowner, who is then entitled to dispose of it.

Options include giving it to charity, arranging for it to be put down or selling it on.

This legislation works well where horses are well cared for and have a considerable resale value. The horse owners are unlikely to want to lose their horse, and are likely to remove it without further trouble once contacted.

However, the legislation does not work so well where the horse is dumped on the land, is uncared for or has little resale value. The landowner may find that the only way to dispose of it is by paying for it to be humanely euthanised. This is both an economic and moral burden to the landowner.

If the landowner is not prepared to put the horse down, they may have to ensure that the animal is in a suitable condition for sale at an auction. The landowner may then find that the original Image © Alamy

horse owner buys the horse back at a fraction of the cost they would have paid the landowner for keeping the horse and any damage done to the property.

The horse owner could even return the horse to the field in which it was fly-grazing and the whole cycle would begin again.

Historically, it was common for the horse owner simply to buy back their horses at auction. But now that the landowner can choose how to dispose of the horse, the horse owner may not take such a risk.

The new legislation goes some of the way to dealing with fly-grazing, but there is room for the legal teeth to be sharpened further. b

Sophie Henwood is a solicitor in the Commercial Property team at law firm Boodle Hatfield shenwood@boodlehatfield.com www.boodlehatfield.com

Related competencies include Planning, Legal and regulatory compliance

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A DV ERTISING

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