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
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