UK Local Government data: model for European standards

Britain is taking a leading role in the standardisation of public information in Europe after local government-backed national property and street ID coding systems were chosen from many submitted from across Europe. Local Government’s address and street datasets, the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) and the National Street Gazetteer (NSG) have been accepted as reference data models under the INSPIRE directive.

With no common standards for spatial data across Europe, INSPIRE seeks to lay down rules for interoperability and harmonisation. It will establish a framework for coordinating the use and implementation of such data for the purposes of Community environmental policies. The established standards will enable users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, for applications including:

• Location and exploitation of natural resources – minerals, soils, vegetation, landscape
• Viewing and analysis of networks – transport, water, energy and telecoms
• Location and distribution of people, businesses, assets, new developments, services and other built infrastructure
• Coordination of responses to emergencies, natural and man made disasters – floods, epidemics and terrorism

The NLPG was one of two data specifications accepted from across Europe to go forward to the Addresses and Technical Working Group. The NLPG was selected because it is built on BS7666, the UK implementation of ISO 19112. The NLPG was singled out for its implementation of the standard at local level enabling aggregation of data at a national and trans-national level (England-Welsh).

The NSG is one of ten data specifications that have been recommended for transport networks, included for its adherence to ISO 19112, its current use for highway maintenance and utility street works and its multi-lingual capabilities (English and Welsh).

As recognised experts in this field, Intelligent Addressing, the custodians of the NLPG since its inception, has been invited to join the Addresses Technical Working Group. The Group aims to create a Europe-wide data standard for any new address datasets. From 2009 any new address datasets across Europe will have to accommodate the agreed data structure and any existing datasets by 2016.

“The decision to include the NLPG and the NSG as data specifications for INSPIRE vindicates the vigorous processes that local authorities across England and Wales have been working to over the past eight years,” said Steve Brandwood, Geographic Information Team – Programme Manager at IDeA. “I am pleased that other users across Europe will now be able to benefit from the experience gained from the UK implementation of ISO 19112.”

Intelligent Addressing Contact:
Gayle Gander, Head of Marketing
T: +44 (0)207 747 3500

Visit these sites:
www.intelligent-addressing.co.uk
www.nlpg.org.uk
www.thensg.org.uk