Talk:Local councils in the United Kingdom

Case Studies

Suggest adding some examples of wins for councils from OSM: e.g., Birmingham Gritting Priority map, chillly's feedback to Hull Council of errors in NaPTAN data, and so on.

-- User:SK53 15:31, 23 April 2010‎

To those can be added:

1. Ceredigion Council Libraries now use OSM: http://libraries.ceredigion.gov.uk/ to show the locations. However, the libraries site will be shifting to a new platform in 2019 (the current iguana platform is fairly new but has not met expectations) and the use of OSM may not survive the transition.

1. Not a council, but a fairly important user: Nomis (UK Official Labour Market Statistics) - the local area reports use OSM.

Local authority street naming notifications

The following was taken from the Potential Datasources wiki page:

I wrote an email to my local authority when I found out that they notify interested parties on the council's decisions on naming and numbering new properties and streets. For areas that have already been densely surveyed and mapped (90%+), it would be an invaluable list of places that might need re-surveying or other editing.

I got an answer back - the council do make the information freely available on their web site, but it's in the form of a PDF file per decision, in a human readable format only, and the whole list is not easily searchable. The information contains no geographic information other than relative references, eg.

       That a new development of a house being built on the
       site adjacent to 47 Belmont Avenue, Barnet, Herts, EN4
       shall be postally addressed:
       WOODVIEW HOUSE, 1A NORRYS ROAD, BARNET,
       HERTS, EN4 9JX.

Occasionally, whole new streets get notified.

       That the access road beginning at the junction with Page Street,
       London, NW7 serving Copthall Leisure Centre and the
       surrounding properties shall be named:
       CHAMPIONS WAY, LONDON, NW4/NW7.
       That the access road that starts at Champions Way and ends at
       the Great North Way, London, NW4 serving Copthall Stadium
       shall be named:
       GREENLANDS LANE, LONDON, NW4.

These lists are not in a standard format among local authorities, and each local authority needs to be handled differently. I plan on writing a web scraping script to attempt to identify the changes, and by searching the nearby street names, pinpoint them on the map, so I would have a list of streets that need editing / surveying. --Welshie 15:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

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Mobile App (eventually) using Open Data?

I'm not sure that this is the right place, but it's relevant. The App would use the GPS location of a mobile to submit its location. The response would be in the form of "Your nearest designated Footpath/Bridleway/etc. is (approx distance) + (cardinal point direction)". This low-traffic query could be satisfied, in non-map form, by the OSM database. However this is not definitive and the necessary data really lies with the local authorities. Under the Government's Open Data initiative they could (should?) support this type of query, especially as it does not require Ordnance Survey data to satisfy the query. Could this be one way of promoting interactivity with the local authority databases without complications from OS?--Urbanrambler1 (talk) 09:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

'At great expense'?? is free, no?

The Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) and One Scotland Mapping Agreement (OSMA) enable public bodies to use OS products free of charge. Perhaps the cost of large to the government as a whole, but not to individual bodies Jnicho02 (talk) 13:44, 19 November 2018 (UTC)