At LSBUD our passion and belief is ‘Safe Digging For All’ and we welcome suggestions for change that will improve our service.  The drivers for change are to make the LSBUD service as useful and easily accessible as possible to help keep as many people safe whilst digging.

With this in mind, at the beginning of each year we run a customer satisfaction survey asking for your feedback about our service and any ideas you may have that could improve on it.  The feedback we receive is invaluable to us and despite such a vast demographic of users, the response we had was fantastic with an overwhelming amount of positive comments and some excellent suggestions so we thank you for this.

So what were some of your suggestions and what have we done about them?

There were some recurring themes in the responses we received so we have tried to bring as many of these to life as we could.  Below are some of the comments you made in January and the solutions we have been putting in place for you during 2024:-
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• It is time consuming and onerous to seek utility information for assets NOT on LSBUD
  Many of those taking the survey had not been made aware of our Top Up Service when this survey was completed.  This is an additional service to the standard free LSBUD search which ‘tops-up’ an LSBUD request by providing responses and asset plans for your area of interest from those network operators and utilities that are not yet members of LSBUD.  We have also developed this even further through our Digital Insight Service which will provide a fully inclusive view of both LSBUD Members and non-Members in one report.  There is also the option to incorporate into a singular digitised pdf with the ability to turn layers on and off as required.
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• More direct links to other services would be helpful
  2024 has seen the announcement of a very exciting opportunity for LSBUD to start doing exactly this as Select Surveys became part of the LSBUD Group.  Specialising in utility surveys, the multi-disciplined geospatial consultancy provides surveying and location-based services to the government, transport, construction and energy sectors and as recognised experts in their field they are a welcome addition to the LSBUD family.
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• If only more asset owners were included on LSBUD
  The LSBUD Membership continues to grow, with over 160 asset owners now putting their trust in LSBUD and choosing to protect their assets with us.  With organisations such as Welsh Power, Toob, South Staffs Water, Cambridge Water, Greenlink Interconnector Ltd, G.Network, AllPoints Fibre and Liverpool City Region Connect all joining this year we are pleased to see not only the growth itself but the wide array of different types of assets now included which you wouldn’t always think to look for.  With more new Members yet to be announced and the imminent expansion into Northern Ireland we are confident that this number will continue to grow.  Please do contact us with any links to any non-Members that you or your organisation may have to help our teams get them on board!
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• Even with the continue job function it can still take a really long time to submit a large site due to size limitations
  We have added another new option under our ‘Advanced Services’ to allow the submission of a Large Site Search.  With increasing numbers of large projects happening across the UK, we have developed this bespoke service to take away some of the manual work involved in covering large areas.  Each request is assessed on an individual basis using information and spatial data provided to us by you.  If you think this may be something that is of use to you, you can find out more about the service here.

• The map is unclear for drawing your search area in certain areas
  In 2023 we introduced the option to choose a satellite map view when drawing your search area.  Even with this option introduced it still seemed a common frustration and Users were unaware it was there to select.  We have therefore made the satellite view the default styling for the map now which has helped make it easier to draw the correct area particularly in the more rural parts of the country.
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• Since the new version of LSBUD it seems slower and why can’t I make the pop-ups disappear?
  The team have worked tirelessly in the background to improve this.  There have been regular upgrades completed which have drastically improved the performance of the system.  The recurring pop-up has also been completely resolved so they will now no longer re-appear once ‘No’ has been selected.
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• It would be useful if we could submit a list of eastings & northings instead of having to do so individually
  The solution for this comment was already available however, we still wanted to share it with you as it is clear that some User’s may not be aware of it.  LSBUD offer a search API facility which allows higher volume Users to automate their enquiries, taking a lot of manual work out of the process, enabling staff to focus on other tasks as well as improving accuracy of the enquiries by taking out the human factor.  You can find out more about our search API and whether it could be helpful for your organisation here.

Once again, we would like to thank each and everyone of you that took the time to complete our feedback survey.  As fantastic as it is to see all the positive comments and suggestions, it is also useful for us to know things that you find frustrating so we can work on improving.

We have certainly learned a lot and hope that some of the things we have already done will have made a positive improvement for you and go that little step further towards safe digging for everyone.

There is currently an industry wide consultation running which will be used to gauge industry opinion on the safe digging sector as it stands.  The aim is to identify ways of improving it and making those that work within it safer than ever before.  This will not be available for much longer but if you would like the opportunity for your voice to be heard then you can complete this here.

The LSBUD Team