[Talk-GB] Natural England release data under Open Government License

[Andy Street]

On Sun, 2012-04-22 at 09:49 +0000, rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi All,
> I spotted this by chance and doesn't look like it has been notified on this  
> mailing list yet:
> 
> Natural England (formally the Countryside Agency) has released GI data  
> under the Open Gov License (OGL) on April 1st 2012. The notification can be  
> viewed on their website:

Nice find!

> http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/publications/data/gidatasetsfeature.aspx
> 
> I haven't yet looked at the specifics of the data but there appears to be  
> quite a lot of different categories available including:
> 
> * National Trails
> * Open Access Areas (CROW Act)
> * Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
> * Ancient Woodlands
> * Lots of landcover types
> 
> I guess there are a few steps/questions:
> 
> Q1. Is any of this data useful for OSM?

It sure is.

> Q2. Is the data in good form?

I've not managed to download it yet but I hope so.

> Q3. If yes to 1 & 2, how best should we go about adding it to OSM (auto  
> import or providing a tool to visualise the data)?

There are a lot of different categories in that dataset so I'd imagine
that the decision would need to be taken for each one individually
rather than as a whole but broadly speaking I'd vote for a visualization
rather than a direct import. In well mapped areas it is likely that the
physical characteristics (woods, fields, etc) are already present in OSM
and just need the additional legal/administrative details added to them.

Cheers,

Andy