New addressing products debut at GeoCommunity Conference

The new products have been produced by GeoPlace, a joint venture between Ordnance Survey and the Local Government Group. They include the first single definitive spatial addressing dataset for England and Wales to be widely available through Ordnance Survey.
From 30 September the new addressing products will be made available to the public and private sectors - to the public sector under the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) and through commercial licences to other sectors.
All three products are maintained from local authority provided data which is brought together with Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail data by GeoPlace. It combines the best parts of local government's National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG), Ordnance Survey's OS MasterMap Address Layer 2 products and the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF). Each of the new products has been designed to meet the differing needs of users:

• AddressBase Premium provides the most detailed view of an address and its lifecycle. It has more records than AddressBase Plus as it provides a range of information relating to an address or property from creation to retirement. It contains local authority, Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail addresses structured in a relational database model based around the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), current (approved) addresses, and alternatives for current addresses (reflecting the changes in addresses), provisional addresses (proposed planning developments) and historic information for addresses (including historic alternatives) where available. Objects without a postal address (OWPAs) and cross references to the OS MasterMap topographic identifiers (TOIDs) are also included.
• AddressBase Plus contains current properties and addresses sourced from local authorities, Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail matched to the UPRN and structured in a flat file model. It has more records than AddressBase as it includes OWPAs, such as subdivided properties, places of worship and community centres. It also enables the end user to locate an address or property on a map, by cross referencing the information with OS MasterMap products via the OS MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network Layers' TOID references.
• AddressBase contains Royal Mail PAF addresses (25.2 million for England and Wales), both commercial and residential, matched to the local authority UPRN and structured in a flat file model. This allows users to link additional information about a property to a single address. It also provides an enhancement to the Royal Mail PAF data by assigning an X and Y coordinate to every address.

The new products have been created in consultation with members of Ordnance Survey's OS Insight product development programme. Starting in April 2011, the engagement and specification feedback from system suppliers and end users has been extremely positive; and enabled the product to be developed based on current and the likely future requirements.
Dinesh Thanigasalam, Managing Director at Aligned Assets, commented: "Our involvement in analysing, providing feedback and using the data in alpha and pre-production form has confirmed for us that we have at last the definitive address dataset the country has been looking for."
While Duncan Hill of Europa Technologies Ltd added: "This will certainly resolve long-standing confusion over different sources of address data, thereby increasing confidence in the application of the data across both public and private sectors alike."
Accurate addressing data is vital in areas as diverse as transport planning and 999 emergency responses, to fraud detection and mail delivery. It is anticipated that the new datasets will provide efficiency gains, improve service delivery and enable greater partnership working with private, public- and third-sector organisations.
Richard Mason, Managing Director of GeoPlace said: "Completion of these products has only been possible following the many years of hard work and commitment by local authorities and their partners which has now been built on by the teams at GeoPlace and Ordnance Survey working together. The partnership approach between local and central government demonstrates how government can work together for the benefit of the whole of the public sector and also deliver benefits to the private sector as well"
John Kimmance, Head of Sales at Ordnance Survey comments: "The realisation of GeoPlace has brought together the core strengths of all the organisations involved. We are delighted to now be at the point where we can make this data available and it will be exciting to see the benefits it will bring to its users."
The new AddressBase products will be available through Ordnance Survey from 30 September. For more information visit http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/index.html

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