Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government holds 3D laser maps of historic buildings to provide an accurate record of their construction in the event of damage.

Government does not have a central repository of 3D laser maps that record historic buildings. However, Historic England (HE) have taken steps to record the most notable historic buildings. The HE Geospatial Survey team have created and hold data for 101 historic sites, of which 55 are English Heritage properties. Notable sites that have complete laser scans include Stonehenge, Ironbridge and Harmondsworth Barn. There are a number of buildings in Shrewsbury that have been scanned and mapped. These include Shrewsbury Old Market Hall, the Charles Darwin statue and the Catholic Cathedral and sections of the town wall, by Arrol and Snell. Ironbridge, already noted, is just outside the constituency and is one of the notable sites which has had complete laser scan coverage.

There are more than 400,000 buildings and monuments on the National Heritage List for England, the vast majority in private ownership. It is likely that only a small fraction of these have been subject to comprehensive laser or photogrammetric survey of any kind. Such surveys that do exist are likely to be held by the owners and organisations carrying out the work.