Birmingham surveyor secures three projects with National Grid
Birmingham-based surveying and stakeholder communications firm, Ardent, has secured three projects with National Grid to support the Great Grid Upgrade.
Ardent, which also has offices in London, Warrington, Leeds, Glasgow, and Dublin, was appointed to National Grid’s UK Land and Property (UKLP) framework for Land Rights and Land Referencing last autumn to aid in the transition to net zero.
The company will now work on three projects that aim to increase the network’s capacity by connecting clean energy to the grid.
It includes over 100km of new cabling for the Eastern Green Link 3 and 4, which will transport renewable energy from Scotland to Lincolnshire and North Norfolk, powering up to four million homes.
As energy generation in Scotland grows, more capacity is needed to securely transport the energy, especially from offshore wind, to the Midlands and southern England.
Ardent will also support a 60km overhead line project from Chesterfield to Willington, which will strengthen the UK’s electricity grid and help meet net-zero targets by handling increased power flows from wind energy in Scotland and the North East.
Additionally, the company will upgrade existing infrastructure in the Midlands and South Yorkshire with new substations.
Around 30 Ardent team members, mainly from its Birmingham, London, and Leeds offices, will work on these projects over the next three to six years, providing services such as land referencing, land assembly, compensation, and digital data management.
Nick Dexter, head of utilities at Ardent, said: “We were, of course, delighted to be appointed to the framework last year as it was a real testament to the growth and stature of the business over recent years. And now we have the opportunity to deliver on three significant schemes with National Grid that will add further capacity to the network as part of the Great Grid Upgrade, which is crucial in creating more electricity capacity for the country.
“The projects will be delivered, largely, by our teams in Birmingham, Leeds and London but we will utilise resources from across all of our offices which, again, underlines how the strength and stature of the business means we can undertake such significant work that will have a lasting, positive effect on the nation’s transition to net zero.”
