Nimbus revolutionised the UK property scene in 2016 when it was the first to bring a data-based software mapping to the market, and we continue to be the market leader for ongoing product development. Key to this is that we never stand still – we are continually developing the platform, adding new data sources and features, making it even more useful and insightful. These happen every two weeks – so if we went over all of them, this would be a very long post! Instead, we’re going to take a quick look at the features introduced in 2023 that we’re most excited about. Are you making the most of them?
In there, at number one, is our Traffic Map feature that is part of our collection of traffic volume insights. Available in our Enterprise package, this is a fantastic tool for commercial developers looking to locate “hot” retail locations that have enough passing trade to cover specific commercial requirements. The tool offers a view of daily traffic movements at specific points on every major and minor road in the country.
Gaining access to this information can be a hard graft – but with Nimbus, it’s right there at your fingertips. The tool doesn’t just include data points from the Department of Transport – we also combine this with a mobile phone data to deliver both traffic and pedestrian heatmaps. This ensures you always have a complete picture of what’s going on and having this information at your fingertips is a feature that you won’t find anywhere else.
A feature we just released towards the end of the year are the Lease Start/End date filters, that helps fulfil the requirements for several types of clients. It’s great for commercial surveyors as they can use it to compare sites with new leases to easily build a detailed picture of the market to quickly ascertain fair and competitive pricing estimates.
Occupiers will love being able to identify sites that might come to market soon, so they can nip in there quickly, while commercial investors will want to find sites with long leases, so they can be confident of long-term returns on their investments. Look for this feature in the “Sales & ownership attributes” section of the Site Finding area.
This year we also added several planning and constraint layers to the platform, all of which are available on every tier. As we know, it pays to do your due diligence on a site as early in the process as possible. After all, you don’t want to find something that scuppers your plans when you’ve already sunk costs into the project. With these new data sources, you can check for potential issues at the click of a button.
Three of these are in the Heritage Constraints section, so you can now check for historic parks and gardens, for scheduled monuments and battlefields, and also for countryside rights of way. Two other new additions can be found in the Environmental Constraints layer; namely locating ancient woodland and local nature reserves.
While useful for residential developers, these are a major boon for commercial developers, for example, those looking for plots to deploy renewable energy – such as solar farms, or energy storage sites.
Meanwhile our Energy and Infrastructure layers make it easy to identify the location of underground power cables and their capacity – ideal if, say, you’re looking to place a data centre – and also the ability to locate pylons and overhead lines.
Thanks to our planning alerts feature Nimbus isn’t just useful when you go and look at it – it’s there working away in the background for you. This feature enables you to set up alerts for planning applications that have been made within a certain radius of a location, such as across a particular local authority, or within a specified radius of a given area. These alerts can be set to be by applicant or location – either way, as soon as something happens, you know about it so you can keep tabs on market activity and opportunities.
You can also set it up to tell you when planning applications have been rejected in any given area, so you can build up a list of owners that you can go and target to see if you can make them an alternative offer for their property. If can also help you build up a strategy – if you find that there are now applications going in, for example, for HMOs, you know that this is something to consider.
A commercial operator, meanwhile, might set up and alert to find out as soon as a competitor puts in an application in the area, so they can work out a suitable response in plenty of time, so it doesn’t overlay impact its business. With Nimbus planning alerts you can be proactive rather than reactive, so you’re always ahead of the game.
At the start of last year, we added the ability to identify settlement boundaries with a new overlay. (Note that this is in the Strategic Land section of Location Analysis – not Boundaries!) Knowing where settlement boundaries are is important as it means you have a good idea of where you are likely to get planning approval for your project. Local planning authorities are much more likely to give planning permission to sites within a settlement boundary, so having access to this information can be crucial to saving you time and money.
What’s next?
These five features are just some of the additions we made to Nimbus in 2023, and you can rest assured that many more are coming in 2024 and some of the changes will be the biggest leap forward for Nimbus ever – we can’t wait for you to get to see them!
Get in touch!
If we’ve already been helping you on your property journey in 2023 you already know how transformative the platform is for growing your business. For those thinking about joining us, we can’t wait to have you on board – exciting times lie ahead. If you’d like to give Nimbus a try, then fill in this form to trial it for free. If you’d like to discuss with us in person how we can help take your business to the next level, then you get in touch with our team today on 01926 355 424.