[Talk-GB] Geospatial Commission to release UPRN/ UPSN identifiers under Open Government Licence

[Mark Goodge]

On 10/04/2020 17:37, Brian Prangle wrote:
> Can I ask two  basic daft questions?
> What use are these in OSM if we only pick at them instead of importing 
> the lot ( which is  highly unlikely)?

UPRNs will be useful on any mapped building or area, as it will help 
link OSM data to other datasets in a consistent way.

> Is it possible to derive street names from USRN in a way that is licence 
> compatible?

That depends on what's in the dataset that eventually gets released as 
open data. I would expect that the canonical name of the street would be 
part of the data, though. If so, then yes, we can use it.

One of the reasons why the government has been persuaded to release 
UPRNs and USRNs as open data is because there is a big push to get third 
party data users (eg, utility companies, roadworks contractor and 
planning applicants) to use the same identifiers as government (local 
and national) already does internally, so as to minimise the risk of 
errors in conversion from one identifier to another. To some extent 
that's already happening, because the big guys are already paying for 
AddressBase and have a licence to use the data. But it's recognised that 
for it to become ubiquitous, the data has to be open as many potential 
users can't, or won't, pay for a commercial licence.

To give an example, a lot of planning applications for greenfield 
developments and agricultural buildings are on land that doesn't have an 
assigned postal address (because nobody sends post to a field or a 
barn!). So they get described on planning applications as something like 
"Land adjacent to 53 Greendale Lane" or "Barn in field behind 23 
Pencaster Road", which often isn't helpful as that can be ambiguous. The 
applicant has to provide what's called the "red line" plan showing the 
outline of the property to which the application refers, but these are 
not necessarily accurate. But if a UPRN is provided, the planning 
authority can look that up on the Land Registry database and see 
precisely where it is, and the extent of the property, without needing 
to rely on the applicant's information. And, again, while large scale 
professional developers almost always get it right (because they can 
afford to spend money on professional data and mapping), it's the small 
guys who often don't. So if they can be steered towards supplying the 
UPRN of the location, it will make things easier all round. But that 
relies on the UPRN being available and reusable in the first place.

Mark