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Knowsley is the latest authority to migrate, with 50 local authorities now on our Local Land Charges Register.

Our Local Land Charges (LLC) delivery is going from strength to strength. yesterday, Wednesday 12 October, Knowsley became the 50th local authority to join the national LLC Register, giving citizens and businesses instant access to LLC search results.

• Knowsley is the 50th local authority to join the service. Anyone requiring LLC searches in the Knowsley Council area will now need to obtain them from HM Land Registry or a search provider rather than going directly to the council.
• Through continuous improvement we have dramatically increased the pace of local authority data transfer to the register, with 38 of the 50 local authority data migrations occurring since April 2021.
• The register now holds over 2.5 million charges, allowing nearly 366,000 automated searches to be conducted. Customers are getting results on average nine days faster which amounts to a total reduction in waiting time of more than 2,000 years. Buyers of official searches have saved more than £860,000 and have the added benefit of a state-backed guarantee.

Gathering pace and meeting ambitions

We have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge from digitising, transforming, and transferring local authority data to the register. This learning has ramped up our delivery capacity, with 38 of the 50 local authority data migrations taking place in the past 19 months. As we continue to refine our processes and apply lessons learned from each migration, this rate of migration will only increase.

By 2023, a third of local authority areas will have joined the service, rising to two thirds the following year. When the project is complete, property buyers, developers, innovators, and policymakers will receive the same level of access, irrespective of their postcode.

Mark Kelso, LLC Programme Director, yesterday said:

I am delighted that people buying property in Knowsley will now have 24/7 instant access to digital LLC search results. This is the 50th local authority to join the service and demonstrates how we are accelerating our delivery pace. This is a credit to the team at Knowsley and the investment in our delivery teams and partners.

We continue to collaborate with local authorities across England and Wales to ensure property buyers can obtain the information they need quickly, making the conveyancing process simpler and faster for everyone. As the register continues to grow, more and more people will benefit from this modern service.

A little about Knowsley

The Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council area borders the City of Liverpool to the west, Sefton to the north-west and St Helens to the east. Knowsley’s 150,000 residential population now have instant access to high quality, standardised, digital LLC data.

Knowsley is home to Knowsley Safari - the UK’s number one Safari Park according to Trip Advisor. Once a former RAF airfield, the 550-acre space is now home to more than 700 animals. The park attracts more than 600,000 visitors a year.

Maximising local benefits

An ambitious homes delivery programme is already well underway in Knowsley. 37 housing developments are currently under construction with an expected 10,000 new properties to be built by 2028. LLC data will feed into these vital development and investment decisions and support more than 3,700 businesses based in the region.

Knowsley is the second local authority in its regional cluster to join the register alongside Liverpool. This presents an exciting opportunity for LLC data to be used between authorities to support local economic investments.

LLC data feeds into more than just development and investment decisions. Knowsley is home St Mary’s Church and a wealth of other listed buildings dating back to the 1700s in Vicarage Place. Accessible LLC data helps protect this local heritage.

Successful collaboration

Vicky Tupou, LLC Delivery Manager for Knowsley, yesterday said:

Knowsley were a fantastic, upbeat, and enthusiastic LLC team especially given they were completing much of the work at the weekends or evenings. Almost 25,000 records were digitised and transformed.

Being home to two big premiership teams you can imagine football was a hot topic in our weekly meetings. It was a pleasure working with Knowsley and we look forward to supporting and collaborating with other authorities to deliver the register.

James Duncan, Knowsley Council’s Executive Director for Resources, yesterday said:

I’m delighted to be supporting the delivery of a national register by HM Land Registry for local land charge searches that meets the needs of everyone, particularly those whose preferred method of working is online. The new service is quick and easy to use. The Council will continue to provide its own service for CON29R requests to customers in the usual way.

HM Land Registry is working in partnership with local authorities across England and Wales to migrate their local land charges data to a central, digital register. Once migrated, anyone will be able to get instant online search results via GOV.UK using the Search for Local Land Charges service.

Business customers can use their existing portal and Business Gateway channels or their usual search providers to access local land charges data for those local authorities which have migrated.

Customers will need to continue to submit CON29 enquiries to their local authority.

For more information, read about the Local Land Charges Programme.