HS2: Streamlining Environmental Compliance
Automating Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) workflows to reduce permitting risk and accelerate delivery on complex, high stakes infrastructure programmes
1Spatial partnered with Laing O’Rourke to revolutionise how Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) data is managed for HS2, automating the integration and validation of diverse datasets into geospatial formats tailored for planning and regulatory submissions. This solution significantly reduced manual effort, accelerated licence application processes, and enabled clearer, evidence-based decisions, ultimately supporting cost efficiency and timely project delivery on one of the UK’s largest infrastructure programmes.
Key Benefits
ü Reduced manual effort – eliminated repetitive data handling tasks through automation – reducing resource burden and turnaround times.
ü Accelerated regulatory approvals – streamlined the preparation of accurate, constraint-aware maps and reports required for winter clearance permitting.
ü Improved data confidence and compliance – ensured data used was up to date, validated, and aligned to specific licence conditions and environmental constraints.
ü Repeatable across other projects – provides a transferable workflow template for other permitting and EIA use cases – including future phases of HS2 and infrastructure programmes like the GGP.
The Challenge
To meet winter clearance licensing requirements for HS2, Laing O’Rourke needed to assemble, validate and analyse spatial data from multiple sources, including habitat designations, species records, planning constraints and land ownership boundaries. The process was manually intensive, time-critical, and error prone – risking delays and non-compliance on one of the UK’s largest infrastructure programmes.
Our Solution
1Spatial developed a tailored geospatial solution that automated the end-to-end EIA data workflow. Using engineering-grade rules-based processing and integrated spatial intelligence, the tool pulled together all relevant data, validated it against permitting criteria, and produced outputs that supported confident, auditable submissions to regulatory bodies. The approach provides a clear blueprint for similar challenges across projects like the Great Grid Partnership (GGP).
Why It Matters
Large infrastructure projects frequently struggle with fragmented data, manual compliance processes, and slow stakeholder engagement. This use case demonstrates how 1Spatial’s technology can automate and de-risk these critical workflows – improving delivery speed, regulatory confidence and stakeholder transparency.
Want to know more?
Find out how 1Spatial’s environmental and permitting data workflows can help you keep GGP and other major projects on track.
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