Local Land and Property Gazetteer
Encyclopedia
A Local Land and Property Gazetteer
(LLPG) is an address
database maintained by local authorities in the United Kingdom. In the UK local authorities have responsibility for creating all addresses, however, until recently those same local authorities have not held a unified and consistent list of addresses within their areas. This has led to various services within individual local authorities maintaining separate and incompatible address databases.
In recent years the central government of the UK has required local authorities to modernise their processes to take advantage of new technologies and provide better linked up services to their residents and businesses. One of the key ways to achieve this goal has been to develop one address resource for their entire local authority area. This has ultimately meant that a resident may notify a council of their change of address at one place without having to repeat the process throughout a number of service areas within an authority.
As part of this process the National Land and Property Gazetteer
(NLPG) was created. This is a central repository or “hub” for all LLPGs and coordinates the many LLPGs created by local authorities. It also enforces the compliance of all LLPGs with the national standard for the representation of address information, British Standard 7666 (BS7666).
Largely through pressure from the central UK government for a consistent address resource the NLPG has become UK’s definitive address infrastructure. However, the development of the NLPG has been held back by arguments between local authorities and the national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey
, who are required to act as a trading entity. This has led to the NLPG being unable to compel local authorities to maintain their LLPGs as well as protracted negotiations regarding issues of ownership of address data.
In May 2005 local authorities in the UK signed an agreement (Mapping Services Agreement
) with suppliers of geographic data
, which included Ordnance Survey and the managers of the NLPG. This solved the issues surrounding ownership of address data and contained many restrictions on the use of LLPGs by local authorities as well as compulsions upon local authorities to maintain their LLPGs.
However, simultaneously, Ordnance Survey published a proposal to develop an alternative address infrastructure called the National Spatial Address Infrastructure
(NSAI). This involved Ordnance Survey taking ownership of the NLPG and then selling it back to the same local authorities that had created the LLPGs that make up the NLPG. This provoked another round of arguments between Ordnance Survey and local authorities. The NSAI has now been abandoned by Ordnance Surveyhttp://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/aboutus/foi/questions/2007/0042.html.
Gazetteer
A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory, an important reference for information about places and place names , used in conjunction with a map or a full atlas. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup of a country, region, or continent as well as the social...
(LLPG) is an address
Address (geography)
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used for describing the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or...
database maintained by local authorities in the United Kingdom. In the UK local authorities have responsibility for creating all addresses, however, until recently those same local authorities have not held a unified and consistent list of addresses within their areas. This has led to various services within individual local authorities maintaining separate and incompatible address databases.
In recent years the central government of the UK has required local authorities to modernise their processes to take advantage of new technologies and provide better linked up services to their residents and businesses. One of the key ways to achieve this goal has been to develop one address resource for their entire local authority area. This has ultimately meant that a resident may notify a council of their change of address at one place without having to repeat the process throughout a number of service areas within an authority.
As part of this process the National Land and Property Gazetteer
National Land and Property Gazetteer
The National Land and Property Gazetteer is an initiative in the United Kingdom to provide a definitive and consistent address — see address — infrastructure for the whole of the UK...
(NLPG) was created. This is a central repository or “hub” for all LLPGs and coordinates the many LLPGs created by local authorities. It also enforces the compliance of all LLPGs with the national standard for the representation of address information, British Standard 7666 (BS7666).
Largely through pressure from the central UK government for a consistent address resource the NLPG has become UK’s definitive address infrastructure. However, the development of the NLPG has been held back by arguments between local authorities and the national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...
, who are required to act as a trading entity. This has led to the NLPG being unable to compel local authorities to maintain their LLPGs as well as protracted negotiations regarding issues of ownership of address data.
In May 2005 local authorities in the UK signed an agreement (Mapping Services Agreement
Mapping Services Agreement
The Mapping Services Agreement is a licensing contract between local authorities in the United Kingdom and suppliers of geographic data. Most of its contents are covered by commercial in confidence requirements...
) with suppliers of geographic data
Geographic data
Geographic data is about much more than electronic pictures of maps.The geographic data that describes our world allows for city planning, flood prediction and relief, emergency service routing, environmental assessments, wind pattern monitoring and many other applications.Geographic data is...
, which included Ordnance Survey and the managers of the NLPG. This solved the issues surrounding ownership of address data and contained many restrictions on the use of LLPGs by local authorities as well as compulsions upon local authorities to maintain their LLPGs.
However, simultaneously, Ordnance Survey published a proposal to develop an alternative address infrastructure called the National Spatial Address Infrastructure
National Spatial Address Infrastructure
The National Spatial Address Infrastructure was a database proposed by the UK Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on 26 May 2005 with the intention of creating a single repository of addresses for the UK...
(NSAI). This involved Ordnance Survey taking ownership of the NLPG and then selling it back to the same local authorities that had created the LLPGs that make up the NLPG. This provoked another round of arguments between Ordnance Survey and local authorities. The NSAI has now been abandoned by Ordnance Surveyhttp://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/aboutus/foi/questions/2007/0042.html.
External links
- National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG)
- Evaluating the benefits of the LLPG and NLPG (CEBR Final Report)
- Delivering better services to citizens (I&DeA/NLPG Booklet)
- National Street Gazetteer (NSG)
- Improvement and Development Agency (I&DeA)
- Valuebill – an example of the implementation of LLPGs nationwide for the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)
- Media comment – "ownership" of postal addresses highlighted (The Guardian 24 May 2007)
- Satirical comment – the LLPG reflected in the media (Transcript from BBC Radio 4 Today Programme)