LSBUD: The Impact Of Vault In Scotland
For over 20 years, LSBUD (Linesearch BeforeUdig) has worked closely with the UK’s safe digging industry to maintain, develop, and enhance our position at its forefront. Our Members and Users take safety exceptionally seriously and challenge us to lead the way for them when it comes to asset and worker protection from third party strikes.
Throughout new initiatives, working practices and legislation, LSBUD has engaged and listened to the industry to provide the innovation they require. Safe digging for all is the mantra that drives us forward.
Taking Scotland as an example, back in 2012, the Scottish Community Apparatus Data Vault (or Vault for short) was implemented on a voluntary basis. Vault’s aim was to make underground pipe and cable information accessible via the Scottish Road Works Register (SRWR) which is Scotland’s national database for the electronic transfer, retention, and management of road works data. In 2019, the Transport (Scotland) Act formally entered the statute books making participation mandatory.
There have been beneficial impacts in Scotland with the introduction of Vault alongside which LSBUD has continued to see significant growth in search numbers, new Users, and new Members in the subsequent years.
As the table shows, we processed 265,000 individual search requests in 2022 with a monthly average of 22,000. This represents over 7,000 more searches per month running through our systems since Vault became mandatory. It just shows how our message has spread and highlights the need for solutions beyond the statutory provision.
Throughout the year, LSBUD receives search requests from a variety of enquirers. It is no surprise that a major telecommunications company carried out over 40,000 searches in Scotland 2022 but there were also many 1000’s of searches by local authorities and 100’s of single requests by private individuals.
Private searches are key because work being carried out on behalf of individuals can be overlooked in the rush to ensure access for statutory undertakers. If they did not carry out a search first, every one of those searches could have resulted in a strike on an underground asset with all the issues that entails.
And it is not just our search numbers that continued to grow in Scotland with 15 major new Members adding their Scottish assets since 2019, including organisations involved in the growth areas of fibre and sustainable energy.
Industry does not stand still, which means those of us providing services to them cannot either.
At LSBUD we are committed to working alongside our Members and the wider industry, to the benefit of everyone, whatever the impact of legislation or government initiatives.
Protecting lives, protecting assets, providing safe digging for all.
