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Blackpool Pleasure Beach has been digitally mapped in high-resolution 3D for the first time as part of a collaboration between Ordnance Survey, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service and the Lancashire Local Resilience Forum.

The project aims to improve emergency planning and response at one of the UK’s busiest and most complex leisure attractions, which welcomes more than five million visitors annually.

Using drone technology and OS expertise in unmanned aerial system (UAS) mapping, fire and rescue teams captured detailed aerial imagery of the site and created a photorealistic 3D mesh model. The digital model provides responders with a clearer understanding of the park’s dense layout, elevated rides and restricted access routes that are difficult to visualise using traditional 2D plans.

The model has also been combined with wider town-scale 3D mapping from OS, creating a comprehensive digital environment that can support multi-agency planning, training exercises and incident response.

According to project partners, the technology improves shared situational awareness, helps identify evacuation and staging routes, and enhances responder safety while enabling the same digital assets to be reused across agencies.

The initiative builds on previous uses of OS 3D mapping technology in emergency response scenarios across the UK, including major evacuations and environmental incidents.