The Government’s proposed new strategy on location data should ‘make access to information on places quicker and easier,’ according to councils.
The Local Government Association welcomed the Department for Communities and Local Government’s aim to tackle the fact that ‘too much crucial information about places is stored in isolated databases, making it difficult for authorities to access, share and analyse’.
This would involve consolidating existing data on places – such as on flood risk or congestion – and standardising reference data on topography, streets and land ownership, as the National Underground Assets has done.
The strategy also urges the introduction of IT infrastructure and processes necessary for different public bodies to share information on places. The Atlantis Initiative, involving bringing together data on flood risk held by six public bodies, is hailed as good practice, and the Government urges further pilots.
Met Office, Highways Agency and Ordnance Survey data could be combined, the strategy suggests, to provide ‘a weather/road condition forecast’. But the department acknowledges thi s would require investment lasting longer than one three-year spending review period, and extending skills on geographic information ‘into the mainstream’.
The strategy’s implementation will be led by a new ‘location council’ bringing together senior professionals from Government. • Place matters: The location strategy for the UK.
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