Office of Public Sector Information

Posted by: Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information

Public Sector Information Holder: Local Government Information House (LGIH)

Information Asset: National Land Property Gazetteer (NLPG)

The problem

At the Open Knowledge Foundation Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information, a list of 15-20 key government / public datasets were identified, of which this was one. The National Land and Property Gazetteer is available for re-use, but you have to buy it commercially, restricting its wider re-use, particularly by not-for profit organisations or start-up innovators. This type of basic information, collected by local authorities should be made available free of charge, to all who want it.

My ideal solution

Free access to the NLPG, particularly for not for profit applications or for start-up innovators.

What I would do

As with the National Street Gazetteer, the NLPG is a core dataset which is useful for a wide range of applications - basically anytime you have an address and you want to do a mash-up, the NLPG is of use.

Posted by: Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information

Public Sector Information Holder: Local Government Information House (LGIH)

Information Asset: National Street Gazetteer (NSG)

The problem

At the Open Knowledge Foundation Workshop on Finding and Re-using Public Information, a list of 15-20 key government / public datasets were identified. The National Street Gazetteer was one of these. It holds details of every street in England, providing a complete list. It is used as a framework for sharing and integrating data, particularly to support Street Works Notices.

Supply of data from the National Street Gazetteer is on a commercial basis and involves the payment of a significant fee. It would be better if this dataset were made freely available, on the web, to support a variety of other uses.

My ideal solution

Free access to the NSG, particularly for non-commercial or experimental re-use.

What I would do

The NSG is a core dataset which would be useful to support many other types of application, particularly in the transport area. Just the list of cycleways would be useful, say to support cycling community initiatives on the web.

Posted by: John Jones

Public Sector Information Holder: The Improvement and Development Agency and The Improvement Service in Scotland

Information Asset: National Land & Property Gazetteer and Scottish National Gazetteer

The problem

Many services rely on identifying a particular address in an unambiguous way. A lot of those services also need to know exactly where the address is located.

For example, Matthew's idea for using Electoral Boundary Data would be even more useful if it could identify exactly which dwellings fall either side of a boundary between neighbouring constituencies or wards.

Certain address location products are built on top of the Royal Mail's PAF and marketed by Ordnance Survey which, as a trading fund, might be reluctant to reduce its licence fees for the time being.

Fortunately, local government has invested independently in collecting its own address database and collated two national gazetteers - one for England & Wales and the other for Scotland. Oddly enough, those don't seem to be available either.

My ideal solution

1. A web service, accepting a request in the form of an approximate address, with a response consisting of one or more 'definitive' structured addresses which match either exactly or closely plus their coordinates or preferably the shapes of their footprints.
2. A web service working in reverse, accepting a request in the form of a location - for example from a GPS receiver - with a response again consisting of one or more nearest 'definitive' structured addresses plus their coordinates or preferably the shapes of their footprints.
3. A complete national file of all 'definitive' structured addresses plus their coordinates or preferably the shapes of their footprints. That would allow developers to build their own solutions, without necessarily relying on access to the web services.

What I would do

So many things would become possible, as such a large proportion of information is related to land and property or its owners or occupiers.