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The Building Safety Act 2022, which came into force on 1 April 2023, was introduced to improve the design, construction, and management of higher-risk buildings following the tragic failures in building safety that led to the Grenfell Tower Fire. The overarching objective of these ground-breaking reforms is to ensure that homes across the country are safer.

The Building Safety Regulator will enforce the Act, ensuring that all responsible and accountable persons operate in accordance with prescribed requirements, including the collation and storage of key information relating to each building. This ‘Golden Thread‘ of information will ensure that all relevant parties – both current and future – can fully understand a building and the steps needed to keep it and its occupants safe.

In accordance with the Act, a principal accountable person for an occupied higher-risk building must establish and operate an effective “mandatory occurrence reporting system”. Specified information must be gathered, retained, and kept up-to-date over time, with the ability to provide the Regulator with this information when requested and in a specified format (a Safety Case Report).

The need to demonstrate the effective management of building safety risks will encourage those that are accountable (typically freeholders and landlords) to take a ‘whole building’ approach to fire and structural safety in higher-risk buildings. Throughout a building’s lifecycle – through any changes in building ownership or delivery teams – this approach will ensure that the right people can make the best possible decisions at the right times to design, construct, and operate the building more safely and effectively.

Archidata can provide information that meets all ‘Golden Thread’ requirements, and we can help ensure you have the appropriate systems in place to store your information in a secure yet searchable format.

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A monitoring survey can detect if or how far a building or structure has moved over time. The survey process involves monitoring specific markers at regular intervals, which can be daily, weekly, monthly, or even annually depending on the nature of the job.

You may have concerns about a crack in your wall, a bank of land that is gradually slipping away, a cliff face that is crumbling towards you, a watercourse that is edging towards your home, or a chimney that is on the move. Or perhaps you need to support a wall – whether it’s yours or a neighbours – while renovating a property, and you would like to check it for movement.

Archidata can monitor any kind of structural movement for you over a relevant period, producing a report that shows any change or potential for change in the future.

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A Verified View – also known as an Accurate Visual Representation (AVR), or a Visually Verified Montage (VVM) – is essentially a type of photomontage where the surveyor records camera position and key point data within the context of the image. This information can then be used by an architect to develop 3D models and perspectives.

Verified Views are great for planning purposes, supporting outline and ‘full plan’ planning applications and appeals. Planning authorities often request specialist CGIs to support applications for prominent developments or those within a sensitive context.

We can deliver a Verified View in the form of high-resolution PDF and DWG CAD files, accompanied by detailed camera information and a set of original images. We are typically able to prepare a Verified View ‘package’ in 10 working days.

What we usually need

• A comprehensive list of requirements and/or areas to cover.
• Existing CAD drawings, if available.
• An Ordnance Survey extract plan of the area in question in DWG CAD format, which we are able to source if required.
• Ideally a topographical survey of the area, although we can of course produce this as part of the brief if required.

Our approach

Site photography and camera matching: We visit the site and establish a centimetre accurate GPS position for each camera viewpoint, then proceed to capture all necessary images for each Verified View (typically using a 24-35mm lens combined with a high resolution image format), plus any site-specific information pertaining to them.

Site survey: We analyse the photographs to identify key points within each view, then return to the site to survey them.

Results: CAD drawings are produced showing the area surrounding the planning proposal, incorporating the field of view and any points of interest located on Ordnance Survey level and grid datum (Newlyn – level 3 only).