On 20 September 2012, MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) and FIND launch a new online heritage assessment service for Great Britain, available at HeritageRisk.co.uk. The online and tablet friendly service, offers planners, developers and surveyors the opportunity to order bespoke heritage and archaeology risk assessment reports, simply by selecting the area of a site on an online map.

Bespoke site assessment reports outline the potential impact of proposed developments on historic buildings, archaeological remains and conservation areas. The service is designed for anyone wanting to know what heritage issues there may be on a specific site. In particular, the service offers vital early-stage insight into risks that may impact on the success of a development.

By using HeritageRisk, users remove the time consuming process of communicating complex site boundaries and details over the phone or by email. The ease of usability makes this the only heritage assessment service of its kind.

HeritageRisk reports are available in two formats:

A ‘rapid’, high-level site assessment that identifies significant archaeological and built heritage risks at the pre-planning stage of development; and

A ‘detailed’ report that provides more extensive information to help to identify key archaeological and built heritage risks or opportunities for a site and to outline the work likely to be required as part of a planning consent.

Chris Thomas, MOLA Senior Consultant, said: “All HeritageRisk reports are produced by our expert heritage consultants who have advised on more than 5,000 development projects throughout the UK. HeritageRisk reports are hugely beneficial to developers and enable them, early in the development cycle, to assess the archaeological and built heritage risks to their site. This crucial information outlines the work likely to be required as part of a planning application and following planning consent.”

Simon Lewis, FIND’s Managing Director, said: “FIND has worked closely with MOLA to create an online site identification service that combines mark-up tools within a simple step-by-step report ordering process. It allows the experts to concentrate on writing the reports, rather than asking the client routine questions and pinpointing the site.”

HeritageRisk reports start from £320, and include the full range of historical maps from Ordnance Survey going back to 1890. For more information, please visit HeritageRisk.co.uk