For the last 25 years, Groundsure has helped people make confident property decisions. Throughout that time, we’ve learned that access to accurate and reliable data is crucial for making informed decisions.
We draw on strategic partnerships to collate a wide range of datasets, whilst also curating and maintaining our own data. For example, we hold one of the largest collections of historic maps in the UK, with over 1.6 million historic Ordnance Survey® maps. Our products are powered by data from trusted providers that we’ve successfully partnered with over the years, helping us create one of the market’s learning datasets.
In the summer of 2026, we launched a new product designed for ecologists which utilises data from this network of data providers. It provides a comprehensive ecological baseline report for any site in the UK, using 41 carefully curated datasets. These include multiple national datasets familiar to many ecologists such as the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission, Natural England and NBN Atlas. Additionally, Groundsure’s Ecology Insight includes some new datasets that we believe will support an ecologist’s desk study preparation and Preliminary Ecological Appraisals.
In this blog post, we explain the data behind our latest product and how our trusted expertise can help you make smarter decisions
Experience you can trust. Datasets and insights you can rely on.
- Over the years, we’ve carefully evaluated and curated the data behind our products;
- Our comprehensive range of reports draw on the latest trusted data and adhere to the relevant standards;
- Each dataset goes through a quality assurance process, overseen by our Data Governance Executive, to ensure best practice for data processes and stringent due diligence is undertaken for our customers. Learn more here;
- Our specialist data team source, manage and update in excess of 600 datasets and undergo a rigorous quality assurance process. This process governs how data is collected, prepared and analysed;
- Our automated, cloud-based systems process vast volumes of data with impressive precision and speed to provide our customers with the answers they need, as quickly as possible;
- This approach turns our high-quality data into actionable insights and informs our decision-making in a customer-centric way;
- Trusted by stakeholders across the environmental consultancy industry to deliver their desk studies.
Alistair Dick, Research Manager at Groundsure says: “By bringing together a comprehensive collection of datasets, commonly used for ecological desk studies in one place, we’re helping ecologists streamline their reporting process and it eliminates the need to manually extract the data from other sources, such as a government platform. Groundsure’s data has been trusted for many years by land contamination teams across environmental consultancies. Our data has supported countless desk studies that have been successfully accepted by regulators.”
We’ve built valuable data partnerships
Over the past year, we’ve spoken with ecology professionals and researched how they prepare for their Preliminary Ecological Appraisals. Through this, we’ve learnt that access to certain datasets can be challenging and cause potential delays. By leveraging some of our trusted data partnerships, we’re able to help ecologists overcome this challenge with highly detailed, analytical data. This helps them prepare for site visits with the relevant information at their fingertips.
We know that trusted data partnerships are essential to delivering accurate, reliable and scalable data sources to customers. Groundsure is a strategic partner of Ordnance Survey® , the national mapping agency of Great Britain. This partnership allows us to utilise their data and provide access to the latest National Geographic Database (NGD) collection of highly detailed topographic data, including:
Water network – providing the flow direction of both named and unnamed water courses, and locations of water features such as lakes and ponds;
Road network – split into categories of paths, roads and tracks to help you understand site access for survey planning, and how this may impact habitats;
Streetlights – visibility on street lighting location can be helpful for planning surveys, and where bat visibility may be impeded;
Field boundaries – split into boundary types including, hedge and tree canopy, to help understand potential habitat locations, before you head on site;
Building information – access detailed data about any building on and around your site to understand roof shape, construction material, and period of build for the potential determination of roosting hot-spots.
Sophie Coley, Strategic Development Manager for the Environment sector at Ordnance Survey said: Accurate, authoritative location data is essential for understanding the natural and built environment. By making detailed Ordnance Survey data available through Groundsure Ecology Insight, we’re helping ecologists access trusted site context more quickly and efficiently. This supports better-informed survey planning, clearer ecological assessments and more confident decision-making.”
We utilise trusted data partnerships to strengthen data quality, enhance our products and build trust in our products, and help customers achieve their goals. And our partnership with GetMapping provides detailed, recent and historic aerial imagery, giving ecologists valuable current site context and what was there previously.
Introducing Groundsure Ecology Insight
The Groundsure Ecology Insight combines a structured desk-based ecology baseline report with interactive spatial mapping tools, helping ecologists access the information they need faster. Data is compiled into a singular report, to provide an initial screening of the site, that can be shared with site developers and project teams, and provides early visibility of site conditions. The accompanying online workspace, Groundsure Explorer, enables full in-depth analysis. Both these products help ecologists quickly compile baseline data, understand site context and identify constraints, ahead of survey planning and fieldwork.
Groundsure Explorer offers an intuitive environment to fully assess ecological data. It allows users to complete the following:
- Export the data as report-ready images, with legends and data copyright statements, or as structured data tables that can be used in further application, or put directly into a report;
- Annotate the workspace with point and polygon features, these can be customised with different colours and plotting map labels;
- Work collaboratively with your colleagues, so everyone has access to the same data, notes and site information;
- Upload your own data – including shapefiles and photos. Our latest update now includes the ability to upload geotagged images and use the location of the images that were taken to create a point annotation.
Groundsure’s Ecology Insight delivers clear location-specific findings through summaries, maps and evidence-led reporting. It helps ecologists access the information they need, faster. Learn more here.
Book an informal chat about the Ecology Insight report and discover how it can help you, contact us on [email protected]
