Councils offer licences for gazetteer use

24 Apr 08
A database of up-to-date and comprehensive information on addresses in England and Wales compiled by 376 councils is to be made available for commercial use next week.

25 April 2008

A database of up-to-date and comprehensive information on addresses in England and Wales compiled by 376 councils is to be made available for commercial use next week.

The National Land and Property Gazetteer, a central hub created by planning authorities, is due to have its commercial launch on April 30, allowing private companies to obtain licences to use the database.

Steve Brandwood, programme manager at the Local Government Information House – a subsidiary of the Improvement and Development Agency – said local authorities' duty to maintain numbering and naming for streets in their area had been 'fairly hidden' in the past.

'Now we have local authorities creating locally pooled address listings in a mandatory form to a national hub. We wanted to ensure that local authorities were updating that data regularly, daily or monthly,' he said.

In what Brandwood calls the 'most up-to-date and complete list of addresses' in the UK, council departments, including planning and electoral registration, bring together previously available information into one central database. Each section of land or property in an area is given a unique property reference number.

The NLPG came about through a public-private partnership between the LGIH and private company Intelligent Addressing, set up in 2000/01.

A study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research on the NLPG estimated that the councils responsible for creating the local gazetteers could save at least £54.4m collectively. The majority of the 30 councils surveyed said the gazetteers had resulted in faster service delivery, reduced errors and improved accuracy.

 

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