The UK’s safe digging industry is seeing its best performance to date - LSBUD, the UK’s leading online safe digging resource, saw more than 3.4 million searches for underground pipes and cables pass through its central system in 2021.

This figure is up 13 percent on 2020, showcasing how all industries, particularly the farming, construction, highways, telecoms, water, gas and electricity sectors, are more committed to safe digging than has ever been the case before.

The searches precede all sorts of activity, such as farmers checking before replacing fences and excavation workers keeping safe digging in mind before digging up a road to install broadband and electricity cables or water and gas pipes.

Richard Broome, MD at LSBUD, commented:

“In order to approach the 3.5 million milestone, our portal has received a search enquiry every two seconds during the average working day.

“Clearly, operators from all industry sectors are taking the right steps to avoid the negative consequences that come from hitting an underground asset, chiefly health and safety disasters, plus significant financial and brand implications. It’s such brilliant news that the majority of people involved in digging work are taking note of the fact that this can all be avoided through asset searching.

“We want to thank every farmer, construction, highways, telecoms, water, gas and electricity worker, that searches before they dig. They’re keeping themselves and those working nearby safe while protecting all-important infrastructure from unnecessary damages.”

LSBUD is also seeing more homeowners and consumers performing a search - out of the 3,000 new registrations the organisation is now receiving every month, domestic customers are one of the fastest growing groups.

LSBUD now has over 100 members signed up across industry, including two out of three of the UK’s

utility operators, 90 percent of gas distribution networks, 92 percent of electricity distribution networks and 99 percent of fuel/oil pipeline operators. It is also seeing more and more decision-makers appreciating the importance of data sharing through making their networks visible on its platform.

Richard Broome commented:

“They are able to benefit from the ‘safety of the herd’ effect – the more asset owners who share their information through one central portal, the more enquiries they receive, while keeping everyone safe.”

LSBUD now hosts over 1 million kilometres of the UK’s 1.5 million kilometres of underground network on its portal, two thirds of which has been added since 2017.

As a result, the number of ‘affected’ notifications, the number of responses sent on behalf of members are up to over 600,000 per month, compared to 250,000 just three years ago.

LSBUD is a free to use online search service that any individual can use to check their works against over 100 asset owners’ utility assets. These include 1 million kilometres of underground and overhead pipelines and cables in the electricity, gas, high pressure fuel/oil, heating, water, and fibre optic networks. The service processes over 3 million enquiries per annum.