The LSBUD (Line Search Before You Dig) organisation, which offers an online asset search facility to UK civil engineering firms for underground pipes and cables, has published their annual Digging Up Britain 2024 report and revealed that telecoms remains the “most active industry” when it comes to searching before digging (39% of searches).
The report notes that, during 2023, the number of search enquires that passed through LSBUD’s portal reached 3.92 million (up from 3.75m last year). Thanks to the roll-out of new mobile and full fibre broadband infrastructure, telecoms has remained the dominant industry in need of detailed underground mapping, amassing a total of 1,545,456 searches or 39% of the total – closely followed by the water sector (27%) and then council work (11%).
However, when looking at the total number of enquiries, the telecoms share actually decreased in 2023 to 39%, which compares with 1,724,998 search enquiries in the previous year or a share of 46%. Nevertheless, the most popular work types were still found to be telecoms, water, gas and electricity (75%), while agricultural work has continued to rise over the last year (17%).
The report links the dip in telecoms activity to the related slowdown in full fibre broadband and mobile network deployments, which have been hit by rising build costs, high interest rates and fierce competition for customers. Quite a few alternative networks have thus switched to focus on growing consumer take-up rather than network build, although there’s still plenty of general build activity (e.g. Openreach, Nexfibre, Netomnia etc.).
Richard Broome, Managing Director at LSBUD, said:
“The telecoms industry is playing such an important role in protecting the UK’s underground infrastructure. It is the biggest ‘searcher’ in the UK, and we don’t see this changing. It is pioneering best practice and other sectors could certainly follow suit.
In 2023, we did see the numbers fall, but we know that the government has been tasked with 85% full-fibre broadband coverage by 2025. With this in mind, we expect to see even more searches being carried out by the telecoms industry in 2024, as the battle to reach rural, off-grid communities ramps up. Of course, this needs to be done safely, and a quick three-minute search with us is the obvious first port of call.”
The report doesn’t mention it, but it’s also possible that LSBUD’s operations could see some impact from the Government’s ongoing development of a National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), which represents a new digital UK map of underground pipes and cables (broadband, power, water etc.) – intended to help reduce accidental damage.