If you're buying land or bringing a site forward for development in England, flood risk is one of the first things a planning authority will look at — and one of the most common reasons a scheme runs into difficulty. Yet the flood zone system is widely misunderstood, and a surprising number of site appraisals
When we were developing GeoScreen, we weren't trying to replace the traditional consultancy model. We were trying to address the gaps it can't economically service — the situations where good ground risk work was either too slow to arrive, too expensive to justify, or simply not viable at the scale or speed a project demanded.
If you've worked in ground engineering or development for any length of time, you'll be familiar with the phased approach to site investigation. It's one of the most well-established principles in geotechnical practice: build knowledge progressively, let each stage inform the next, and don't commission intrusive investigation until you understand what you're looking for. GeoScreen's
When I built GeoScreen, the goal was straightforward: take the datasets a competent geotechnical engineer would check and automate the interrogation so nothing gets missed under time pressure. The platform launched with eleven geohazard categories, BGS geology, EA flood mapping, and heritage and ecology datasets — the core stack. But after running many reports and
GeoScreen — an automated geotechnical desk study platform — is now live in two tiers: Tier 0 — Ground Risk Snapshot: £75 + VAT Tier 1 — Preliminary Ground Risk Screening Report: £150 + VAT The question we're getting is obvious: what's the difference? The short answer is simple: the data is identical — only
How GeoScreen Works — The Technology Behind a 90-Second Ground Risk Report When people hear that GeoScreen delivers a Tier 1 Preliminary Ground Risk Screening Report — a fully automated desk-based assessment — in around 90 seconds, the first question is simple: How? A manually produced desk study typically takes a competent geotechnical engineer one
What GeoScreen Is — and What It Isn't GeoScreen produces a preliminary desk study. It is not a BS 5930:2015-compliant desk study (as clearly noted in the report itself), but a fast, consistent, data-driven starting point — something to have in hand when first considering a site, before committing to the cost of a full
I've spent nearly twenty years in the ground — boreholes, trial pits, desk studies, risk assessments, planning submissions. And over that time, one issue kept coming up again and again. In construction, ground risk is one of the biggest sources of cost and uncertainty. Get it right early — before land is acquired, before planning
When you appoint a geotechnical consultant, you're making a decision based on trust. ISO 9001 certification is one of the clearest signals that a business takes quality seriously. What is ISO 9001? ISO 9001 is the internationally recognised standard for Quality Management Systems. It requires documented, repeatable processes for delivering services — reviewed and improved
When you submit a site address to an automated reporting platform, you're sharing business-sensitive information. At Magnum GSI Ltd, data security isn't an afterthought. Cyber Essentials accredited Magnum GSI Ltd holds Cyber Essentials accreditation for the whole organisation — the UK Government-backed certification demonstrating our systems meet a defined standard of cyber security. For clients
