Land with Certainty Conference
18 September 2025 | South Kensington, London
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Following the success of the inaugural Society of Land Referencers, Land with Certainty conference in October 2024, our 2025 Conference will be held on Thursday 18 September at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in South Kensington, London.
Celebrating the Inaugural Land with Certainty Conference
On Thursday 24th October, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society at their South Kensington building, SoLR held our inaugural Land with Certainty conference. This gathering brought together professionals from various land referencing disciplines, highlighting the significance of our industry and the extensive topics we had to discuss as a unified group.
An industry conference has been an ambition of the SoLR board and wider industry members for many years. Following SoLR's collaborative industry workshop in June 2023 and the creation of our sub-committees, the Professional Engagement sub-committee took ownership of bringing this ambition to life. Planning for the event started back in November 2023, with wider support from SoLR's members in February supporting the conference organisation coming together. With the commitment, organisation and support of SoLR members the conference was a great success.
The conference brought together 100 attendees from over 20 land referencing organisations to listen and discuss relevant and important topics. Speakers from 9 different organisations, including consultancies, charities, legal and client entities discussed key topics such as consenting regimes throughout the UK and delivering projects sustainably with emphasis on people and the legacy the projects will leave behind. The conference was opened by Mike Crowther, the Chair of SoLR's Identity sub-committee, discussing the importance of our industry and the need for us to collectively agree our identity going forwards. Catherine Souch, the RGS' Head of Research and Higher Education, followed this up by discussing professional geography and accreditation routes available to those in our industry. These opening talks brought together the synergies that exist between land referencing and professional geographers and were echoed throughout the day by all of the speakers.
Key takeaways from the conference sessions included:
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The importance and need for us to agree our land referencing identity
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Legislative and standard recommendations that we can promote as a society
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Our continued commitment to collaborating with complementary organisations and industries such as the RGS
The day was superbly chaired by Jim Harvey, a long-term supporter of SoLR and member of our identity sub-committee.
We see this event as a major success and the start of an annual event for members. We have ambitions to make this event bigger, with more topics discussed and an even more diverse set of speakers in 2025. As with any initial event, we have been, and continue to be, interested in collecting feedback from attendees. We are currently reviewing feedback collected from those who attended the conference, and please get in touch at hello@solr.org.uk if you would like to provide any additional feedback or suggestions for our 2025 conference.
Finally, we would like to express our thanks to everyone who made this event happen. From the attendees, speakers, sponsors, and every wider SoLR members who dedicated their time to put this event together.