Terrafirma Official CON29M receives highly commended in Best Innovation Category at the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards 2019

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Terrafirma, an environmental information and data intelligence provider, received a highly commended award in the Best Innovation Category at the Mortgage Finance Gazette 2019 Awards held in London this evening. The award recognises the crucial role played by Terrafirma which saw historic changes made by The Law Society to enable a new official CON29M Report from Terrafirma.  

“We are honoured that our work to raise the issue of coal mining that resulted in Terrafirma becoming the first commercial organisation to become an official CON29M report producer has been recognised in a category as prestigious as Innovation at the Mortgage Finance Gazette Awards this year,” said Tom Backhouse, CEO and Founder, Terrafirma.“This recognition is testament to our expertise and is a huge achievement in both the development of Terrafirma and in the evolution of environmental reports.”

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Terrafirma CEO appointed as member of The Geological Society Council

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Terrafirma CEO appointed as member of The Geological Society Council

Terrafirma are very proud to announce that our founder, Tom Backhouse, has today been elected to council, within The Geological Society. He will also serve on the Professional Committee. Following a successful round of voting earlier this year, Tom’s candidature was yesterday put to the Society AGM and accepted.

Tom will also serve on the Professional Committee, where he will focus on liaising with academic institutions and commercial enterprises alike, seeking to better provide careers advice, prospects and networking to all members.

Terrafirma are also delighted to have become a cooperate affiliate of The Geological Society, able to support the future events and to host several exciting events of our own within the renowned Burlington House that we will be able to reveal more about later this year.

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Advisory Panel Announced

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Today we’re delighted to announce the launch of our very own Advisory Panel who will be providing ongoing guidance and counsel to both the business and our clients, with particular focus on educating property market stakeholders to ground hazards, and the provision of innovative solutions.

Chaired by highly respected environmental lawyer Andrew Wiseman CBE, the panel will meet on a regular basis to discuss issues raised by the business and the wider industry. It comprises professionals and academics at the cutting edge of environmental and ground hazard solutions in the UK’s built -environment, legal and insurance sectors.

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Digging Deeper into Ordnance Survey Data

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In 2017, Terrafirma embarked on several projects, in line with our ambition to find innovative ways of gathering and using new sources of information.

These projects varied considerably, from working with universities across the UK to identify and commercialise new ‘ground-breaking’ research projects, working with industry partners to combine intelligence and delve deeper into existing databases, with British Geological Survey, Coal Authority and Ordnance Survey to name but a few. One such project aimed to extract data relevant to historical mining and quarrying activity from several Ordnance Survey (OS) datasets. This project concluded successfully, identifying thousands of mining and quarrying features previously underutilised within risk assessment processes in existing environmental reports. 

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A look ahead to 2018.

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Change is coming.

The age of solely relying on data in property and environmental risk assessment is being rapidly replaced with a demand for interpretation, risk transfer and professional opinion. Over the past few years there has been a visible shift in the way that professionals and the public perceive hazards such as contaminated land and flood. Where historically data alone was enough to accept due diligence, interpretation is now a standard in assessing and managing these environmental issues. However, until recently the understanding of the physical, financial and legal liabilities associated with ground hazards has been largely neglected. In 2016, only 1 in 100 property valuations* considered any risks the ground poses and less than 20% of all property transactions included a structural building survey**.

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A Year in Terrafirma. 2017 has been a year of success, growth and change for Terrafirma.  As a team, we have succeeded in our ambitions to positively disrupt and transform the face of UK ground risk assessment, establishing Terrafirma as a leader in delivering due diligence solutions for the complex physical, financial and legal risks associated with the UK’s mining legacy. As a company, we have grown into a team of 15 employees with an array of talent, experience and expertise that allows us to continually develop our services to excel beyond expectation and innovate the way in which professionals perceive, manage and resolve the risks the ground poses.  There have been numerous achievements throughout 2017, epitomised by an award-winning night at the Modern Law Awards in July, where I was presented with an Outstanding Achievement Award for the exploits of Terrafirma during the past 12 months. This award was testament to the hard work and dedication of every team member and was grateful recognition for the impact Terrafirma has had on the UK’s legal sector since its founding in 2015.  Alongside this achievement, Terrafirma has continued to innovate mining and ground risk assessment, launching a coal mining report in January 2017 that has quickly become the second most purchased mining report in the UK, growing daily and continuing to improve the due diligence of conveyancing firms nationwide. Terrafirma continues to put education at the forefront of its business plans, providing over 500 hours of CPD in the past 18 months to several thousand professionals within the UK’s legal sector and since the summer we have taken a foray into the world of television, radio and newspapers exposing the real and varied risks the ground poses on shows such as BBC Ones ‘The One Show’, ‘Evening News’ and recently ‘Rip Off Britain’. This is expected to continue into 2018 with several more documentaries and public information shows scheduled across terrestrial television, national newspapers and industry journals. The next 12 months will continue to see Terrafirma at the forefront of change, influencing to inform across public, commercial, academic, regulatory and governmental bodies and further innovating and delivering our services to ensure that the risks the ground pose are understood, managed and actioned within the practice of purchasing property and developing land. As a company, we move forward from solely mining risk into the many hazards associated with the ground. Finding our Identity. Terrafirma’s extraordinary growth has meant we have been unable to focus on creating a brand identity, that suits the company’s ethos, ambitions and principles, instead focussing on innovating and delivering excellent product and client service. This has now changed - instead of building an identity, Terrafirma has found one. We have used our unique perspective to help us grow into an identity that is characterised by our professional yet personal approach to customer service, our ambition to continue changing perceptions and our ability to understand the ground.  Today, we launch our new brand alongside our new website: www.terrafirmasearch.co.uk allowing for a consistent theme and key messages across our external marketing, sales, education and services material. This change enables the continued growth and success of Terrafirma, enhances our reputation within the market and allows the ongoing support of our network of partners. Our new identity offers a simple, clean and concise style yet ensures a professional, expert and safe theme, with our key messages and unique selling points easily identifiable.  Explore Our New Look We hope you like our new brand, website and identity. Please take some time to explore our new website and marketing material and direct any questions to our Head of Marketing, Louise Burke by emailing: louise@terrafirmasearch.co.uk.  Authored by: Tom Backhouse,  Founder and CEO, Terrafirma.     

A Year in Terrafirma.

2017 has been a year of success, growth and change for Terrafirma. 

As a team, we have succeeded in our ambitions to positively disrupt and transform the face of UK ground risk assessment, establishing Terrafirma as a leader in delivering due diligence solutions for the complex physical, financial and legal risks associated with the UK’s mining legacy. 

Finding our Identity.

Instead of building an identity, Terrafirma has found one. We have used our unique perspective to help us grow into an identity characterised by our professional yet personal approach to customer service, our ambition to continue changing perceptions and our ability to understand the ground. 

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Hurricanes and Sinkholes

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With Ex-Ophelia currently hitting the headlines and the UK's shores, Terrafirma's Engineering Geologist Codi Morton explores the links between hurricanes or storm events and ground instability.

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Fracking: Election Update 2017

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It has long been accepted that we fear what we don’t know. Fracking has divided public opinion, with its relatively recent appearance on our shores following an exponential industrial growth in North America, leaving many unanswered questions. A national and political agenda, focused on energy and resource security through what may be volatile years ahead, is somewhat contradicted by local and community-scale worry of a poorly understood industry. Public perceptions have highlighted the lack of academic study into the risks posed to health and the environment, coupled with concerns about the effect on enjoyment of property and the local area and perhaps importantly, the impact on asset value.

Virtual Reality first in Terrafirma's new 'Innovation Series'

Terrafirma prides itself on its innovative approach to data and environmental risk assessment. Our ambitions have succeeded in changing perceptions and better managing the risks the ground poses by combining existing and unique data with professional expertise. The recent success of our suite of services in the UK property market is testament to the growing requirement for professional opinions to replace the historical, data-only risk model and we continue to push further forward in conceptual and interpretative modelling of UK geohazard risks.