Sport England works with local authorities and sport governing bodies to help ensure the right sports facilities are provided, in the right places, to meet the needs of local populations and encourage active lifestyles. Decision makers need to know exactly where formal sports currently take place, what facilities are available and where there are gaps in provision, to help them plan future investments in sports.

To address this challenge, Sport England had previously developed a website called Active Places Power, comprising tools for exploring Sport England’s extensive database of over 115,000 sports facilities. This bespoke platform was, however, built on out-dated technologies and not fully integrated with the organisation’s other GIS systems. Every time Sport England wanted to make changes to the solution, it had to engage specialist software engineers, which made it costly and time-consuming to enhance.

Recognising the urgent need for a new approach, Sport England began by building a foundational GIS platform to support its current and future geospatial applications. It was already using Esri’s ArcGIS desktop software and services within the organisation, so elected to create the robust, underlying geospatial data infrastructure that it needed using ArcGIS Enterprise, hosted in the cloud. At the same time, the organisation migrated its core database of sporting facilities (known as Active Places) to the new ArcGIS platform.

Next, Sport England reimagined Active Places Power, effectively building on top of the new GIS infrastructure. This cloud-based solution was created within ArcGIS Online and uses functionality from ArcGIS Hub Premium, ArcGIS Survey123, ArcGIS Experience Builder, ArcGIS Dashboards and Esri’s geoprocessing services to deliver a modern toolkit for users. “We use lots of different parts of the Esri technology stack, but they all talk to each other in a seamless way,” explains Liz Clarke, Head of GIS at Sport England.

The new-look Active Places Power is more intuitive to use and has more modern interfaces than its predecessor. Staff at Sport England, local authorities and sport governing bodies rely on it to inform their investment strategies and make sure they are providing the right facilities, in the right locations. The toolkit offers a wealth of capabilities, including spatial tools that estimate where populations can’t reach a sports facility and ‘demand calculators’ that enable users to estimate the additional demand for sports facilities that may arise from anticipated population growth in an area.

Sport England is now leveraging its new GIS infrastructure and single source of geospatial data to build more apps, maps and services for staff and stakeholders. For example, the organisation has recently launched a new ArcGIS solution, called the Small Area Estimates tool, that enables internal and external users to explore the results of Sport England’s ‘Active Lives’ surveys and estimate the proportions of adults, children and young people who are active or inactive/less active, by area.

Estimated cost savings of £1 million
The new, ArcGIS-based Active Places Power toolkit relives local authorities, sport governing bodies and other stakeholders of the need to capture and maintain data and develop their own analytical tools, creating savings across the sector. For example, Sport England estimates that having access to playing pitch information through Active Places Power saves local authorities over £1 million per annum in playing pitch strategy production costs.

Multi-million-pound investments in sports
The Active Places Power toolkit underpins the evidence to secure investment into the sports sector. Using Active Places, Sport England alone negotiated £14.4 million into sport through the planning system in 2023/24. Commenting on this achievement, Nick Evans, Director of Planning and Active Environments at Sport England, says, “We have been able to quickly replicate tools within ArcGIS, which are intuitive to use, enabling our Planning Team, and others, to make a robust case for developer contributions for new sports facilities to offset the increased demand generated from new development.”

30% reduction in application maintenance costs
Sport England has compared the cost of carrying out continuous improvement on the new-look Active Places Power, the new ArcGIS-based Active Places database and the underlying ArcGIS infrastructure with the cost of carrying out the same tasks previously. Through this exercise, it has estimated that the new solutions will reduce costs for the organisation by at least 30%.

15-fold increase in development speed
Sport England no longer needs to engage specialist software engineers to carry out bespoke programming every time it wants to upgrade Active Places Power. As a result, updates that used to take between two and three working weeks to implement can now typically be delivered in just one day using ArcGIS, which is up to fifteen times faster. Simple fixes, like changes to the way pop-up boxes display, can even be done in as little as an hour, empowering Sport England to implement application enhancements on demand.

Capability and flexibility to innovate
The new ArcGIS infrastructure has given Sport England the capability, flexibility and, indeed, enthusiasm to deliver additional, value-adding apps. The organisation is, for example, currently converting spreadsheets into interactive dashboards, using the ArcGIS Dashboards app, which will provide added transparency about how Sport England is investing £250 million a year. “We are right at the beginning of an exciting new journey!” Clarke exclaims. “ArcGIS gives us the ability to deliver more applications to support our colleagues and the sport sector as a whole.”

On the moorland surrounding Lake Vyrnwy in Wales, peat that had formed over a period of up to 3,500 years was degrading rapidly, with far-reaching consequences. In some locations as much as 20 years of peat formation was being lost in a single year. Unique habitats for rare plants and birds were declining in condition and the previously long-term peat accumulating carbon sink was becoming a carbon source.

With funding from the National Peatland Action Programme, Hafren Dyfrdwy (a subsidiary of Severn Trent) and other partners, RSPB Cymru (Wales) resolved to tackle the urgent problem and restore this precious peatland region. It aimed to create healthy wetland habitats where plant species could thrive to support stronger, sustainable ecosystems of insects and birds, whilst recreating conditions necessary for carbon sequestration.

RSPB Cymru’s Peatland Project Team began by creating a detailed digital map of the Lake Vyrnwy region in Esri’s ArcGIS Pro software. By digitising features that required intervention, valuable data on the health of the peatland was incorporated into the model, including the results of peat depth surveys. RSPB Cymru was then able to create a heatmap of the site, clearly showing the variation in peat depth and therefore identifying where peatland restoration is urgently needed.

Using drones, the project team conducted aerial surveys of the site, processing this data using ArcGIS Drone2Map. RSPB staff and volunteers then walked the site, using an app developed with ArcGIS Field Maps, to ‘ground truth’ the site plan and add restoration lines and features to the map while in the field.

In these ways, RSPB Cymru accurately digitised specific site features, such as gullies and ditches, and built up a highly detailed picture of the site in ArcGIS Pro. Around eight members of staff at RSPB Cymru now use this digital representation of the peatland on a daily basis to detect, analyse, prioritise, plan and manage restoration works.

The charity’s appointed contractors use an ArcGIS Field Maps app to navigate around the site and find where works need to be carried out. The app shows them the best routes for moving heavy machinery across the area to avoid damage to healthy sections of peatland. Contractors also use the app to mark changes, such as where dams have been constructed to form new pools.

The updates recorded by contractors in the ArcGIS Field Maps app are instantly visible to RSPB Cymru staff in ArcGIS Pro, enabling them to monitor projects very closely. Staff can also produce reports much more quickly, as they can instantly see live changes on site and use accurate data to produce maps for funders and other stakeholders.

Greater understanding of peatland health
Visualising data in ArcGIS Pro gives RSPB Cymru and its partners a far clearer understanding of peatland health in the Lake Vyrnwy region. The maps generated, like the peat depth hotspot map, clearly show which areas need to be restored and where existing features like gullies are located across a vast moorland landscape of over 46 km2. “ArcGIS is pretty instrumental for a project of this scale, in a remote location,” says Ben Willcox, Peatland Project Officer at RSPB Cymru.

Effective planning of restoration works
RSPB Cymru can plan restoration works in specific locations with a fine degree of accuracy using ArcGIS Pro. Staff can work out the size of areas and the corresponding resources needed and cost of implementing remediation works. They can then create buffer areas around features to calculate the potential carbon savings. With this insight, the charity can approach funders with detailed information about the funding required to deliver tangible results in specific locations.

Time savings while working in the field
By empowering contractors and field-based staff with ArcGIS Field Maps, RSPB Cymru has ensured that all works carried out on site are completed as efficiently as possible. Everyone can view the same up-to-date maps in the field to see which areas have been improved and where works are taking place. “ArcGIS saves not only staff time, but also our contractors’ time, which enables us to deliver environmental projects very efficiently,” observes Willcox. “The more efficient we can be, the more we can achieve with our funding.”

Effective management of ongoing programme
While the peatland restoration programme at Lake Vyrnwy is still continuing, RSPB Cymru has already used ArcGIS Pro to manage many consecutive and sucessive restoration works across Wales effectively. By March 2024, the organisation had successfully rewet over 1,078 hectares of land, built 38,400 dams and blocked and reprofiled over 250 km of gullies, ditches and peat haggs, enough to stretch from Swansea to London. It has, therefore, significantly improved conditions for peat generation, leading to greater carbon sequestration and water retention, allevitating both flooding and drought effects.

Healthy habitats for special species
This highly successful ArcGIS-led project, is undoubtedly having a very positive impact on habitats and biodiversity. Across the site, rare species including sphagnum mosses and carnivorous sundew plants are becoming reestablished. Golden plovers are using recently restored peatland on the reserve for the first time in 25 years, and some of Britain’s rarest birds of prey, Hen harriers, Merlin and Hobby are relying on these sites as important foraging habitat. As Willcox rightly says, “Peatland is a rare, unique habitat, so when it is in good condition it attracts some very special species.”

The Crown Estate is responsible for managing the seabed and much of the coastline around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, an area greater than the entire UK landmass. Its remit is to unlock value from the sustainable management of this seabed and return its net profit to the UK government for the benefit of public spending.

With many competing demands on the marine environment, the organisation needed to be able to find the best locations for new sustainable energy facilities and other new developments, while taking into account a vast number of constraints, from the routes of underwater pipelines and shipping lanes to fishing grounds and areas designated for the protection of marine species, such as the bottlenose dolphin.

The Crown Estate developed a Resource Identification and Optimisation tool, known internally simply as RIO, using Esri’s ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Enterprise solutions. This sophisticated geospatial app identifies and evaluates all constraints on the seabed, revealing the most constrained areas in pink and less constrained areas in light blue on an interactive marine map.

Using ArcGIS Pro, the organisation then runs analysis to identify and evaluate different scenarios. This process has been fully automated using Python to effortlessly identify the optimum locations for different projects. To date, The Crown Estate has identified areas of opportunity for twelve sectors that it manages, including areas where different sectors could share use of a marine area, known as co-location opportunities. Whenever circumstances change, such as when a new wind farm is built, the solution automatically re-analyses and recalculates the optimum scenarios, across all industry sectors.

The different scenarios can be examined in depth using a data visualisation tool created with ArcGIS Experience Builder. Users can, for example, use this tool to compare two alternative ways to reach offshore wind targets on a dashboard, one being the lowest cost option and the other being the option with the fewest constraints.

The Crown Estate also uses a range of ArcGIS products to help it engage with stakeholders. For example, it has created a map-based discussion board in ArcGIS Hub that allows fishermen to review and annotate marine maps to show where fishing takes place. It has also built a story with the ArcGIS StoryMaps app builder to share its ambition for unlocking up to 4.5GW of new floating offshore wind capacity in the Celtic Sea by 2035.

Faster delivery of net zero policy targets
Through this cutting-edge use of ArcGIS for geospatial analysis and data, The Crown Estate now has the potential to support faster, well-informed decisions, which could acceleratethe delivery of the UK government’s net zero policy targets. In a marine area that already has over 2,400 wind turbines and 40,000 km of cables, it can rapidly identify space for new projects and prioritise those locations with the lowest development costs and fewest impacts on the environment, industry and other marine users. “We estimate that ArcGIS saves us hundreds of days of analyst time,” says Joseph Sykes, Senior Marine Spatial Planning Manager.

Evidence-based Routemap for the future
The use of ArcGIS has delivered the insight that The Crown Estate needs to formulate a holistic, evidence-based plan for the future, called the Marine Delivery Routemap. “ArcGIS enables us to run scenarios out to 2050, for all of our sectors and the environment, in a way that we have never been able to do before,” explains Jamie Moore, Marine Delivery Routemap Director at The Crown Estate. “It enables us to understand the consequences of each scenario – both positive and negative – and create the best Routemap for the future. It really is a truly powerful tool.”

Informed decisions to support nature recovery
Critically, ArcGIS is helping The Crown Estate to make informed decisions about how to support and protect nature and achieve Good Environmental Status, while developing the marine environment. As Harriet Baldwin, one of the organisaton’s Marine Spatial Planning Managers, observes, “With ArcGIS, we are creating an improved spatial understanding of where nature recovery activities could be most needed and the potential pressures upon them from other future activities.”

Interactive engagement with stakeholders
The Crown Estate values the way in which it can build interactive ArcGIS apps and services, using tools such as ArcGIS StoryMaps and ArcGIS Hub, to help it convey its complex analyses to stakeholders, across multiple agencies and sectors, and take into account their views. The organisation can involve dozens of interested parties in its decision-making processes and better understand the needs of people, like those whose fishing livelihoods depend on the sea.

An auditable, repeatable process
ArcGIS has enabled the creation of a fully auditable and repeatable process, so The Crown Estate can rerun, update and evolve its spatial models as new data and evidence becomes available, to make robust decisions and deliver on government priorities, while managing marine environments sustainably. Confident that the organisation now has the capability to balance conflicting demands on the seabed, Michelle Moore, Technical and Spatial Planning Director at The Crown Estate, says, “We can now focus on creating a thriving marine environment and delivering greatest value for the nation.”

Operating across every dimension of commercial real estate CBRE takes pride in its deep market knowledge, enabling its clients to transform their businesses and achieve greater success. The company’s brokers play a crucial role in ensuring the smooth operation of client accounts, frequently managing multi-million-pound deals and assisting clients with everything from expanding to consolidating property portfolios.

The Consumer, Supply Chain & Talent Consulting team is responsible for providing the wealth of geospatial data that is essential for brokers to deliver these services effectively. Previously, data collection and storage were handled through Excel files, with brokers across different UK offices emailing each other with data requests. This led to multiple disparate spreadsheets across various locations, causing brokers to face issues such as version conflicts and data integrity challenges.

What they required was a centralised data management system with visualisation and analytical tools that would allow brokers to input their own data. “When I joined CBRE the brokers already knew what they needed and had already created a Proof of Concept. Our job was to build a tool that could streamline their workflows and empower them to make more incisive and timely decisions” observed Erik Pearson, Director, Consumer, Supply Chain & Talent Consulting, CBRE Ltd.

CBRE was already using ArcGIS Enterprise, so the initial version of its new centralised data management and analytics solution was developed with Experience Builder and named the Industrial & Logistics Data Visualization Suite, or simply ‘DataViz.’ Data from 1,000 industrial sites was initially uploaded, representing a major shift in brokers’ access to information.

With the upgrade to ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1, additional functionality and automation have been integrated, creating a richer and more intuitive user experience. By collaborating with an Esri UK pre-sales advisor - who outlined the ‘art of the possible’ - and utilising additional scripting tools, Python and Arcade, Version 2 of DataViz was delivered on schedule within just two weeks.

The system is now regularly accessed by more than 200 users across the UK, one fifth of whom have editing rights allowing them to add, maintain and edit their own data within a single, centralised ArcGIS-based platform. Remarkably, only two of all users have formal GIS knowledge, underscoring DataViz’s ease of use even for those with no GIS experience.

Brokers have access to the same data, visualised in map form. Those with view-only licenses can navigate, query, analyse and export the data with ease, fulfilling their needs without requiring advanced training. DataViz has significantly impacted the broker’s day-to-day operations, improved workflow efficiency and enhanced decision-making.

Furthermore, DataViz has expanded online access to critical information, with over 7,500 sites now entered. The floor space of tracked buildings has increased from around 200 million square feet to over 600 million square feet, with all the data being entered and maintained directly by users.

Building new skillsets
Less than one percent of all users – only two out of over 200 - have formal GIS knowledge or training. New users have required only one internal briefing session to optimise their use of DataViz, helping them to build new skillsets, and add value to their roles. Since inception, DataViz has had more than 16,000 visits, each with multiple interactions, over 51,000 to date (February 2025).

Improved accuracy of data
With its group of approved contributors, data quality management is assured along with accuracy and security of all geospatial data. Geospatial data relating to more than 7,500 separate sites has been uploaded, up from an initial 1,000 in the original DataViz, and the floor space of tracked buildings has increased from around 200 million square feet to over 600 million square feet.

Increased efficiency and productivity
Having access to all geospatial data through one, centralised online platform, allows the brokers to undertake more rapid analytical tasks, work more efficiently and respond more quickly to client requests. Contributors are empowered to enter and maintain their own data, which is accessible to all users, enabling them to perform necessary tasks online to fulfil their roles.

More informed decision-making
Having access to visualised data helps brokers to make more informed decisions, more quickly. They can see site availability instantly, and no longer must search through disparate, non-interactive spreadsheets to find the data they need to perform analysis and make client recommendations.

In 2020, Lancaster City Council secured match funding from Historic England through the High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) programme. The funding, one of over 60 grants awarded across England, was to help create and deliver an exciting programme of investment in buildings and spaces together with community engagement and capacity building focusing on a historic part of Lancaster’s city centre.

The brief was challenging: to create live and digital assets that would share information, spark curiosity and reshape perceptions to support and enhance the wider HSHAZ regeneration programme.

Key to the success and legacy of the project was engaging the community, especially younger generations, who are often under-represented in consultations around planning processes. Digital tools to bridge the gap between heritage, conservation management and public participation were essential, as was leveraging Lancaster’s rich archive of historical materials and data to connect past and present in meaningful and engaging ways.

Throughout the project Lancaster City Council’s GIS team sought to bridge a stronger connection between conservation management planning and public engagement. Their goal was to help audiences understand why buildings look the way they do and visualise how appropriate interventions could transform them.

Esri StoryMaps and ArcGIS Experience Builder were identified as the ideal tools to present research and outputs from the HSHAZ initiative with a focus on the Mill Race area - a historically significant area enjoying ongoing regeneration. The apps traced the project’s evolution from 2D representations, including archival data and a new conservation management plan, to 3D visualisations.

The team further built on the HSHAZ work with funding from the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government PropTech Round 4, collaborating with Lancaster University and other partners. Using advanced geospatial analysis tools in ArcGIS City Engine, they imported historical CAD drawings from SketchUp for more detailed evaluations of designs, environmental and spatial factors.

StoryMaps play a vital role in displaying these outputs and were selected for their ability to effectively engage younger audiences, learning online. Their multimedia capabilities and integrations including the Mill Race Area 3D point cloud provide a dynamic and immersive storytelling experience. The use of historical maps has been particularly impactful, offering enriched insights into the evolution of spatial data over time.

Key innovations include the integration of 2D and 3D datasets to create comprehensive visualisations, using historical maps to highlight the evolution of the urban landscape and presenting a data-rich resource for local historians, building owners, planners and architects. Users can navigate freely in the model, exploring old planning application data, the heritage plaques in the Mill Race Are and how renovations completed under the new conservation management plan would look.

User-friendly software
The team leveraged Esri’s ArcGIS System to create impactful apps without the need for extensive development expertise. The outputs, including the StoryMaps, are accessible to a broad range of users including those without a technical background and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, highlighting how intuitive and easy it is to navigate and use the 3D app.

Time-savings
Previously, requests to review archive data, historical maps and datasets would have been time-consuming and laborious for the GIS team to fulfil. Similarly, interested parties no longer have to submit formal requests to the city council or county records office and can now access, view and interrogate a wealth of vital historical records by clicking the online links.

More effective communication
By blending archive data with cutting edge GIS technologies, the GIS team has created accessible tools that deepen public understanding of the past, while supporting informed planning for the future. The StoryMap and apps bring the city’s rich heritage to life, sharing data in an easy-to-understand way that would otherwise have been inaccessible to many interested parties and members of the public.

Preserving the city’s heritage
Better access to the legacy of the architecture of the city will help future generations make better planning decisions about the city’s future. Audiences have an insightful perspective into the evolution of spatial data over time, which will help to shape and inform new developments that will enhance the city’s historical status and protect its rich industrial heritage.

For many years, Bradford Council had aspired to create a 3D model of the city to support urban planning. Meanwhile, the University of Bradford had a similar ambition to create 3D models of over 1100 listed structures across the district. For both organisations, this was a daunting undertaking, but when they discovered that they shared the same vision of a ‘virtual’ Bradford, they realised that they could achieve their goals through collaboration.

In this highly innovative project, Bradford Council and the University of Bradford are making extensive use of Esri’s ArcGIS technology to build and expand the digital twin, and optimise its use.

The two organisations use ArcGIS Pro to plan drone flight paths and street-level data capture missions. They then use the many collaboration tools available in ArcGIS Online to share the data captured and work together effectively. For instance, council staff use ArcGIS Online to quality control the data captured by the university and refine the 3D model. When new data becomes available, it can be dropped into the collaboration space in ArcGIS Online, making it immediately available to teams across both organisations.

Known as Virtual Bradford, the digital twin currently covers the historic city centre, with additional coverage for Saltaire UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Southern Gateway. It comprises 3D visualisations of nearly 4,200 addressable properties, from homes to train stations, including 843 listed structures, and plans are in place to expand it further in subsequent project phases. All the data in Virtual Bradford is available in an open data format, so that it can be used by anyone for any application, from urban planning to online city tours and virtual reality games.

Bradford Council and the University of Bradford are using ArcGIS to leverage Virtual Bradford in a wide range of ways. The two organisations have, for instance, combined their expertise to create educational resources using the ArcGIS StoryMaps app builder in place-based research. These apps bring the heritage of Saltaire UNESCO World Heritage Site to life in 3D and help people engage with the unique industrial history of the area.

Virtual Bradford has become a central component of Bradford Council’s Digital Strategy and is now playing a fundamental role in data-driven decision-making for the future development of the district. The council has recently acquired ArcGIS Urban and plans to use solutions including ArcGIS CityEngine to support 3D district master planning, as well as transportation planning and much more besides. “The only limitation in the use of Virtual Bradford is our imagination,” says Adrian Walker, Transformational Services Manager at Bradford Council.

Effective collaboration in innovative project
ArcGIS Online provided the collaboration space and tools that Bradford Council and the University of Bradford needed to share data and work together to create the digital twin. “This project has collaboration and innovation at its core,” says Professor Andrew Wilson, Chair of Archaeological and Forensic Science at the University of Bradford. “ArcGIS has supported a wonderful two-way flow of knowledge between the university and the council and enabled the successful delivery of Virtual Bradford.”

Greater public engagement in city planning
Bradford Council can now visualise proposed new city centre regeneration plans in 3D, to show people how new buildings are situated within the historic environment. For example, plans are in progress to visualise potential designs for a new railway station and viaduct as part of a public consultation process. “Using Virtual Bradford, we can engage better with citizens and help them understand planning proposals,” says Walker.

Informed delivery of clean growth strategy
Bradford Council is using Virtual Bradford and its ArcGIS tools to help it deliver its clean growth strategy and other city regeneration projects. It has, for example, visualised outputs from air quality monitoring studies and projections using Virtual Bradford, to show the impacts of Bradford’s successful new Clean Air Zone. Virtual Bradford will similarly be used to support initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, plan biodiversity net gain schemes and predict energy consumption.

A creative, interactive record of change
By enhancing Virtual Bradford with new street-level and aerial images, at regular intervals, the project will effectively create an interactive record of changes in the city. Virtual Bradford will show where new street murals are being painted across the city to help mark the Bradford district’s year as UK City of Culture 2025. As it continues to evolve, Virtual Bradford will provide a record of how the skyline of the city changes and where historical structures have been restored and preserved.

Raised awareness of Bradford’s heritage assets
Virtual Bradford is being used by the council, the university and other stakeholders to raise awareness of the heritage of the city, enhance tourism and encourage greater civic pride. The digital twin and story maps enable people to explore much of the city online, from the historic City Hall and Wool Exchange to the original medieval street plan. “Bradford is a hidden gem!” exclaims Wilson. “There are lots of reasons to love Bradford and the Esri technology helps to convey our enthusiasm and delight in our city.”

Access to dependable, high speed mobile connectivity is essential for residents, businesses and organisations across the country. Like many regions, Nottinghamshire has faced varying levels of mobile signal coverage, and the 4G and 5G connectivity maps provided by network operators often fail to accurately reflect real-world conditions faced by residents, businesses and public sector organisations.

Recognising this gap, the Digital Connectivity team was successful in securing funding from the Local Government Association’s (LGA) ‘Digital Pathfinders Programme’, and selected Birmingham City University (BCU) as the academic partner for the project to collect data and map actual mobile connectivity across the county (see footnote reference 1). Over an 18-month period, data was collected by a network monitoring device that synchronously measured all four Mobile Network Operators’ (MNOs) 4G and 5G mobile signal coverage across the refuse collection routes operated by the seven District Local Authorities in Nottinghamshire. The survey collected data across 7,723 roads across Nottinghamshire’s districts and boroughs, resulting in 7.7 million data points being collected.

Whilst this vast amount of data was held in Excel files, it was difficult to analyse efficiently and present to those who could benefit most from it. Without the ability to visualise the data it is virtually impossible to interpret and to effectively present the results to MNOs and other key stakeholders. The Digital Connectivity team realised it was vital to bring this data to life, creating use-friendly visuals that clearly highlight connectivity across all MNOs with a focus on areas of poor signal and gaps in coverage. These visuals would then be used in discussions to influence interventions and investment in improved network coverage.

Nottinghamshire County Council provides public access to real-time insights and in-depth analysis of local trends through the Nottinghamshire Observatory, which is fully hosted and managed using Esri UK’s Data Observatory. Already leveraging Report Builder for ArcGIS to create detailed reports and visualisations, the Council identified the Observatory as the ideal platform for presenting the results of the Digital Pathfinders Project.

To map and share the huge amounts of data surveyed, the Digital Connectivity team chose ArcGIS Experience Builder, a commercial off-the-shelf solution, which empowers users to create a high quality interactive and compelling website without the need for complicated coding. The process was streamlined, enabling the team to create the maps and then to build the web pages, starting with an existing web page template and then using the customised widgets and design preferences as needed.

Colour-blind palettes were selected for the maps, ensuring the maps are accessible to users with colour vision deficiencies, aligning with the Council’s accessibility and inclusion goals. “A clear and accessible viewing experience offered on all platforms, especially mobile devices was essential to the council’s own brand, credibility, and reputation, and Experience Builder certainly fulfilled this requirement,” commented Jonathan Hall, GIS Officer – Digital Connectivity, Nottinghamshire County Council.

Users can now explore the findings through mobile-friendly maps, zoom into specific areas, flip between separate webpages of the four MNOs in Nottinghamshire (Three, EE, Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone) whilst ensuring that the maps retain the same zoom and extent, and check 4G and 5G availability – from ‘not spots’ (no network coverage) to areas with excellent connectivity. The maps are optimised for various screen sizes including large screens, tablets and mobiles, thus giving a pleasant viewing experience.

By identifying areas with poor connectivity and ‘not spots’, the team can now prioritise these areas for intervention and engage with the MNOs and other relevant partners/stakeholders to devise solutions to drive improved mobile connectivity.

Delivering mobile equality
By visualising its mobile connectivity data, Nottinghamshire County Council has a clearer view of the ‘not spots’ and poor signal areas and can have meaningful and collaborative conversations with mobile network operators to address poor connectivity issues. The maps will also be used to track developments and changes in mobile connectivity as 6G is trialled and previous generations of mobile communications (eg 3G) become obsolete.

Updatable
Future data additions can now be seamlessly integrated, enabling clear visualisation of progress and changes. This allows for continuous mapping of underserved areas, including public spaces inaccessible to refuse collection lorries, ensuring comprehensive coverage and targeted improvements.

Demonstrating insights
Maps have been created to visualise the seven million plus data points, allowing users and stakeholders to uncover insights that were previously hidden in Excel files. The interactive, zoomable maps with multiple user features demonstrate the impact of the collected data, enabling the Digital Connectivity team to showcase the results of its work to the LGA, which funded the Digital Pathfinders Project.

Better viewing experience
Residents and businesses can view the maps on a variety of devices with different screen sizes, thanks to the technology employed in Experience Builder. These web apps automatically adapt to the user’s screen size, ensuring a seamless experience across devices. Features like the colour-blind palette also make the maps accessible to users with colour vision deficiencies, allowing everyone to read and understand the maps clearly.

Walk Wheel Cycle Trust's goal is to improve the safety and accessibility of the 12,786-mile National Cycle Network and provide quality paths where everyone can enjoy walking, cycling and wheeling. The charity formulated an ambitious Network Development Plan, but some improvement initiatives were hampered by insufficient data on land ownership. Recognising this, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust decided to use its existing ArcGIS system to give its employees access to additional land data, which they could then use to improve the implementation of network improvements.

Initially, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust collected additional land ownership data by contacting around 150 local authorities individually. Then, at an Esri UK Conference, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust met with LANDCLAN, an Esri UK partner that provides spatially-joined land and property data for use in ArcGIS. Through its government sponsors, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust entered into a licence agreement for selected LANDCLAN datasets, including data on land ownership, public rights of way, habitats and transport.

At the same time, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust began to make greater use of data from the Esri Living Atlas of the World. This global, online resource provides easy access to authoritative maps, apps and data layers that can be easily integrated into ArcGIS projects. Walk Wheel Cycle Trust discovered valuable data in the Living Atlas on everything from environmental changes and flood risks to heritage sites that could support its decision-making.

Walk Wheel Cycle Trust's employees now consume the additional data from the Living Atlas and LANDCLAN using a variety of ArcGIS apps, maps and dashboards, including ArcGIS Pro on desktops and hundreds of project-specific web apps developed with ArcGIS Experience Builder. Network Development Teams, for example, can click on the ‘add data widget’ in ArcGIS Experience Builder to browse and select data from the Living Atlas and/or the curated LANDCLAN datasets, which are organised in eight themes.

The new data from the Living Atlas and LANDCLAN is proving especially useful for users of the charity’s ArcGIS-based Network Development Tool. Employees can zoom into the National Cycle Network, geolocate sections of the route that need improvement, understand constraints arising from land ownership or flood risks and draw in planned improvements. For example, they can see where land boundaries are and identify the owners of adjacent fields when considering if there might be support for widening a section of path.

When individual improvement projects are ready to proceed, ArcGIS is used in many different ways to support their implementation. In particular, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust has created a Network Development Plan Dashboard in ArcGIS Online to enable senior managers and stakeholders to monitor the status of around 17,000 individual improvement projects that are planned, in progress or completed. Updated daily, the dashboard shows them key KPIs such as the number of barriers that have been removed to improve accessibility.

A shared understanding of land ownership
As Walk Wheel Cycle Trust is now making more data available via its ArcGIS apps, tools and dashboards, everyone in the organisation has an improved, shared understanding of landownership within a 50 metre radius of the National Cycle Network. According to Ralph Hughes, GIS Manager at Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, “ArcGIS has all the functionality they needs to bring together vast amounts of data, from many different sources, and make it available across the organisation in a variety of apps.”

Improved visibility of potential project constraints
Using ArcGIS apps, such as the Network Development Tool, employees can now clearly see which areas of land are in private, corporate or public ownership and identify locations where planned network improvement projects may meet resistance from land owners. “Using land ownership data from LANDCLAN in ArcGIS helps us to understand the risks and constraints of future projects—and that is invaluable,” says Simon Pratt, Head of Network Development at Walk Wheel Cycle Trust.

Faster decisions to accelerate network improvements
With easy access to additional land data via their ArcGIS apps, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust’s employees can make faster decisions and accelerate the delivery of the National Network Development Plan. “Having fast information about land ownership means that ideas about potential new improvements to paths can be discussed, evaluated and moved forwards quickly,” says Pratt. “The right improvement projects can be prioritised to deliver the greatest benefit for path users.”

Hours of effort removed by streaming data
While the amount of data that Walk Wheel Cycle Trust uses has increased immeasurably, the amount of time spent by the in-house GIS team preparing and managing data has reduced considerably. “The best thing about streaming data from the Esri Living Atlas and LANDCLAN is that it is always up-to-date,” says Hughes. “Hours of effort sourcing, maintaining and updating data in-house are completely removed.”

More effective and collaborative project management
Walk Wheel Cycle Trust's decision to supplement its own in-house data with additional land data from third parties will undoubtedly help it to deliver its vision of ‘paths for everyone’. Senior managers have greater insight into the locations of planned projects, can collaborate with the right landowners early on and monitor projects in a live ArcGIS Dashboard. As Hughes says, “The additional data that we are now using within ArcGIS is helping us to drive change.”

Public and private sector organisations across the UK have aspirations to achieve net zero—but it can be incredibly difficult to understand where to begin. The independent research and technology company, Energy Systems Catapult realised that local authorities, in particular, were setting carbon targets without fully understanding where they could achieve the largest reductions in carbon emissions or which low carbon energy schemes might deliver the best results across their regions.

A lot of open source data was available to local authorities, but it wasn’t always clear which datasets met their needs, were authoritative, could be relied upon, and covered all key use cases. Furthermore, although the data was free to use, there was a hidden cost involved in formatting and analysing it, before it could be used to inform significant investments in decarbonisation strategies and green energy.

Energy Systems Catapult has strong expertise in this field, having developed the Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) guidance that is widely used across the public sector for producing sustainable energy plans. It also has employees with 30 years’ combined experience of using Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) technology, ArcGIS, with open source, commercial, and in-house developed data. It therefore had the technical skills and knowledge in-house to support local authorities and help them realise their net zero goals.

The company used ArcGIS Pro to collate, process and analyse a vast amount of open, commercial and in-house developed data from around thirty different, trusted input sources. It used tools available within ArcGIS Pro, including Spatial Analyst, to determine the precise attributes of buildings, such as roof shapes and side access, and scientifically calculated the relative decarbonisation potential of each property in Great Britain. It then packaged this intelligence into a suite of datasets in the Net Zero Data range.

Customers can quickly purchase Net Zero Data online through Energy Systems Catapult’s online data marketplace, import it into their own ArcGIS systems, access it via an application programming interface (API) or purchase it as part of a data visualisation package. They can then explore the data on interactive maps to understand the indicative suitability of each building for low carbon and renewable technologies, such as air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels. Buildings are colour coded on the maps, making it very easy for councils to see and prioritise areas with high concentrations of ‘red’ buildings where decarbonisation projects could have the greatest positive impact.

Energy Systems Catapult uses ArcPy to automate daily updates to the data product range in Net Zero Data. For instance, ArcPy automatically recalculates the potential of different types of green energy at each property, daily, to take into account changes to housing data and other new data sources.

To support the sale process, sales personnel within Energy Systems Catapult use ArcGIS Online to create custom web apps, as demonstrations for customers. They have also created engaging stories with the ArcGIS StoryMaps app. Available via the company’s website, these interactive sales tools provide a clear and engaging introduction to the benefits and uses of Net Zero Data.

An innovative and authoritative suite of data products
Through the use of ArcGIS, Energy Systems Catapult has been able to develop and launch an innovative and authoritative new data product that adds value for local authorities and other organisations that are working towards net zero. Net Zero Data enables users to answer specific questions ranging from which social housing stock do we insulate first to where do we put electric vehicle charging hubs. “All the data needed to answer questions is now in one place, in a standardised, easy-to-use, pre-packaged datasets,” says Sandeep Kang, Senior Product Manager at Energy Systems Catapult.

An automated mechanism for updating data
The automated mechanism that Energy Systems Catapult has developed with ArcPy enables it to ensure its Net Zero Data product is constantly refreshed and relevant for its customers. “As we are using ArcPy instead of applying updates manually, we can ensure a highly accurate and consistent approach,” explains Ben Walters, Senior Modelling Consultant at Energy Systems Catapult. “Local authorities don’t need to worry about whether the data is out-of-date and can trust it for their decision-making.”

Lower cost and faster sales cycles
Energy Systems Catapult has used ArcGIS to create a portfolio of versatile and cost-effective tools for promoting its Net Zero Data product. Web apps and story maps are quick and easy to produce, which helps to reduce the cost of sale. “ArcGIS is super, super intuitive,” says Kang. “I have not had any formal GIS training but can build customised web apps as demostrations for customers in ArcGIS very quickly. The flexibility of ArcGIS goes a long way to supporting our sales process.”

Faster achievement of net zero targets
Energy Systems Catapult is certain that its ArcGIS-driven initiative to make better data available will accelerate its customers’ journeys to net zero. One customer recently used Net Zero Data to prioritise the installation of solar panels on village halls, based on their energy usage. “Our customers can see exactly where to focus their attention and investments to decarbonise faster,” says Walters. “Without ArcGIS, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver that level of accuracy.”

Carbon storage will play a key role in helping the UK to achieve net zero, and there is significant potential to store carbon offshore. In 2022, NSTA announced that it would be holding the world’s first large-scale, competitive bid process to award licences for the development of carbon storage facilities at thirteen marine sites. Located off the coasts of Norfolk, Teesside, Liverpool and Aberdeen, these sites, together, are capable of storing almost 10% of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Organising a licensing round of such national importance was a major undertaking for NSTA. It needed to find an effective way to share information with all potential bidders and manage the application process efficiently. At the same time, NSTA needed to ensure that the process was equitable and open to all kinds of potential operators, from the large energy companies already operating in the North Sea to small, niche carbon storage companies.

NSTA had been using Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) technology for many years to share geospatial information both externally and internally, enabling people to make fast, informed decisions. It decided to use a combination of products from Esri’s ArcGIS suite to create new datasets, processes and mapping applications to support the carbon storage licensing process, from start to finish.

The organisation began by using ArcGIS Pro to compile all available data about the thirteen designated carbon storage zones and surrounding marine areas. It included vital information like bidding area boundaries, along with data from The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland, to create a ‘single source of the truth’ that could be used not only internally but also shared with potential bidders.

NSTA then made all this data, covering 12,000 km2 of seabed, available to any company interested in bidding for a carbon storage licence, via its open data portal. Built with ArcGIS Hub technology, the portal enabled bidders to either download or stream the information they were interested in directly into their own systems.

To complement the open data portal, NSTA created an external web app, using ArcGIS Online, that allowed potential bidders to explore live maps and analyse all of the available datasets online, without the need for specialist software or skills. Bidders could see the zones that were available and identify factors that could affect any future appraisal and development including nearby infrastructure, wind farms, and seismic surveys.

NSTA also built an internal web app in ArcGIS Online to support the administration of the licensing process. This app provided a central portal for access to all available information and applications from interested organisations. It facilitated effective collaboration between NSTA’s employees and supported the end-to-end process of communicating with potential bidders, receiving and assessing applications and awarding contracts.

An efficient, end-to-end licensing process
NSTA’s streamlined, ArcGIS-driven process helped to avoid duplicated tasks and created efficiencies throughout the administration of this first-of-its-kind carbon storage bidding process. All of the bids were submitted in the same format, which helped to create a level playing field for organisations competing for carbon capture licences in the North Sea. The organisation successfully awarded 14 companies 21 licences to store carbon in depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers, paving the way for up to 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to be stored annually by 2030.

A broad range of applications
The external ArcGIS web app helped to encourage a broad range of applications by making the application process accessible to small, niche carbon capture companies as well as the giants of the energy industry. Regardless of whether they were experienced or novice GIS users, applicants could visualise sites on the ArcGIS web app, find pertinent data about the seabed and historic activity, and assess the potential of the licence areas. “We were genuinely delighted by the number and quality of applications that we received and the breadth of organisations that these bids came from,” says Nick Richardson, Head of Exploration & New Ventures at NSTA.

Lower cost to market for successful bidders
By using ArcGIS Hub technology and an ArcGIS web app to share information that is already available, NSTA is reducing costs for the successful bidders. There are 60+ years of subsurface surveys in its National Data Repository, originally conducted for the oil and gas industry, that can be reused to support the nascent carbon capture industry. Sharing data with ArcGIS in this way has the potential to reduce the cost to market for carbon storage quite significantly, as organisations do not have to go out and repeat the same initial geological surveys.

A proven approach for future licensing rounds
NSTA’s ArcGIS-based approach to transforming access to information has captured international attention, and the organisation was presented with a Special Achievement in GIS award at the Esri User Conference in San Diego in 2024. “We have created a process with ArcGIS that is adaptable to accommodate different user needs and that is malleable to future requirements,” says Tanya Knowles, Head of Digital Services at NSTA. “We will now use this process as the basis for a future process that will be even more sophisticated and robust.”