The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG)

Stephendale
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Joined:
07/01/2010

Does anyone know if there are any linked data applications that make use of the NLPG? Just read this article and seems there could be a lot of opportunities if the data is available as a URI. http://www.iahub.net/docs/1278000184850.pdf
05/07/2010 10:10 #1
Anonymous

Interesting topic, and

Interesting topic, and somewhat controversial. As I understand it, local authorities put in all the work to construct the LLPG, hand the data over to NLPG, who make money out of it but it doesn't make it's way back to the local authorities! Someone somewhere is profiting...not quite sure who, but I doubt you'll be seeing this data released for nothing!
22/07/2010 00:07 #2
Anonymous

not really supprising that

not really supprising that none of the money goes back to the NLPG. it is not the first time and i doubt it will be the last time we see Royal mail and the OS taking the mick.. very controversial to say the least.

john
05/07/2010 16:14 #3
Anonymous

NLPG licensing

Most of the NLPG revenue goes to Ordnance Survey / Royal Mail with a very limited proportion coming back to local authorities. Although there are long standing agreements in place that legislate this. The NLPG falls firmly into the derived data category.
13/07/2010 16:06 #4
Anonymous

NLPG licensing

Over 90% of the revenue goes back to the OS and Royal Mail, yet less than 50% of the NLPG is derived from their original data.

In essence, the OS and Royal Mail earn vast sums of money off the back of the NLPG for doing absolutely nothing.
24/07/2010 19:11 #5
Anonymous

Low NLPG sales; Free the NLPG

I don't think the NLPG sales will be high enough for the Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey to make that much off them. But by the price being kept high with pass through costs required by RM and OS it means the NLPG does not undermine the sales of the RM Postcode Address File (PAF) and OS Mastermap Address Layer 2.
Maybe local authorities give up on making any money off the NLPG. They get efficiency benefits anyway for maintaining it. And should push for it to be freed which would feed back into it accuracy if they put in good feedback and reporting mechanisms. In meantime they could produce a version of NLPG striped of postcodes and grid refs, or better still just those the grid refs exact matching any Ordnance Survey Mastermap TOIDS, and so OS claims on data.
Some companies then might drop having to buy PAF and use addresses from NLPG, matching customers by other elements of address. Royal Mail if it wants use of postcodes would be reason then to release PAF for free although nowadays I think Royal Mail address recognition software should interpret whole address without postcode and route just as well.
I myself like the use localities & towns within the NLPG / BS7666 that aren't in the PAF. It gives locations much more a sense of where they are and their history. With the PAF too many addresses are subsumed into nearest posttown use for postal routing. Fair enough given PAF is about postal mail routing but location is so much more. And then all the non-postal locations like playgrounds, sub stations etc.
03/08/2010 18:50 #6
Anonymous

PAF would still need to be used in conjuction with UPRN's

A business that has been relying on PAF to help update unstable Postcode data would still need to buy PAF data for that purpose, even with NLPG data sets available.
NLPG was born partialy to overcome the instability issues of indexing databases with Postcodes as a common referance code.

They both exsist to achive different purposes:

NLPG Gives a very stable referance code to a indidual property or street etc. Sutible for very long term datasets as used in Goverment (and in bussiness)

POSTCODES give highly optimised and dynamicly modified routing infomation for postal traffic Sutible for directing letters and parcels to post delivary bags for individual post rounds

A referance to the proper nature of postcodes was made in the explanative letter given on thier website, when Royal Mail decided to deliberatly stop suppling older versions of their online-suplied postcode changes publications that would people to still work out data changes to work with older unupdated postcode including data files.
Namely it was stated that they were internal codes to Royal mail services and should not be relied upon for any other purpose. The mesage being aimed at anyone seeking to claim damages to their business based on the policy change

NLPG should be released as it profits the goverment to have these automaticaly included on public forms, allows feedback on mistakes, gives business a stable refereanceing platform and allows more accurate automated interigation of private company database infomation by goverment software mixing it with internal goverment data sets.

If the goverment (or least last goverment) saw merit in getting us signed up to an id network to support thier id-card scheme. Is there really no merit in allowing the same permantly accurate id'ing of property and streets.

The intreasting argument above about where fees end up suggests that it really isn't supporting the right agencys responsible for creating and maintaing data.

I also note that some councils have already begun releaseing UPRN's to the public for addresses, in thier jurisdiction, for free from their websites.

Concluding:-
NLPG should be released publicly for the above benifits and savings in costs [of datamismatchs and imprecise updates during datacleaning] to Government, Bussiness and Charities alike.
27/08/2010 15:04 #7
LucyO
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Joined:
28/07/2010

It's a big shame

I've seen this data and it's very good but I have never been able to justify licensing it as an alternative to OS/RM products.

This is due to:

The cost: NLPG has to charge the OS/RM Addresspoint charges then add their margin.
Terms: OS/RM aren't providing the terms to use it commercially on a transactional basis.

Big big shame as in reality I'm sure there isn't much OS/RM IP in there. Derived data is a massive issue but hopefully NLPG can draw a line in the sand at which point they can categorically say OS data has not been used.