WIREDGOV

GeoPlace has announced that the Rt Hon Christopher Pincher MP, Minister for Housing will speak at its annual conference which takes places online on 12th and 13h May 2021. The theme is ‘Places for People’.

Last April, in welcoming the opening up of UPRNs and USRNs under Open Government licence, the Minister yesterday said:

“I am encouraged by the new opportunities this presents to digitally transform public services and boost our economy. This is the most powerful boost for the UK PropTech sector in a generation, unlocking new levels of digital innovation on a national scale. Open identifiers are crucial for tech entrepreneurs and wider industry – they will enable housing developers to find sites that have the most potential, helping deliver much-needed new homes across the country.”

From policy-making managers to front-line key workers, everyone needs to manage critical resources efficiently. With COVID-19 affecting us all, we’ve never been more dependent on the ability of our health services, local and central government to deliver vital support measures and services exactly to where they’re needed most.

But there’s one question that must be answered in every aspect of those complex processes – where, exactly, should everything be happening?

‘Places for People’ will explore how we find the answers to that question, and not just in regard to COVID-19. Location helps us to provide support for vulnerable people; it helps the property and housing sector to protect tenants against rogue landlords; it enables us to share assets that can support the UK’s digital infrastructure and reduce congestion and pollution on the road network – location is the answer to very many questions. We’ll be looking at the importance of that data being current, accurate and most crucially being widely shareable.

Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace yesterday said:

“I am delighted to welcome the Minister to the conference, alongside other expert speakers from across the public sector. Speakers at the conference will demonstrate that it is impossible to plan for the development of residential housing without accounting for a wide array of other public services – transport, health, social care, education – all of which relies on the use and interoperability of data tied to a location.

“The GeoPlace conference is a focal point for hundreds of public sector data experts, all of whom use or need location data to effect change and overcome key challenges.”

The conference agenda is available at https://www.geoplace.co.uk/news-events/events/conference. The event is free of charge to attend and restricted to the public sector and Statutory Undertakers.

NOTES

About GeoPlace

GeoPlace LLP is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Ordnance Survey (OS).

GeoPlace is a world class expert in address and street information management, working internationally as well as in the UK to help our partners and customers maximise the value of their spatial information for better decision making.

GeoPlace maintains a national infrastructure that supports the address and street information needs of the public and private sectors. Its work relies heavily on close working relationships with every local authority in England and Wales. This relationship has been developed over 15 years, to build the National Address Gazetteer infrastructure and National Street Gazetteer. OS develops the range of AddressBase products from the National Address Gazetteer and OS MasterMap Highways Network from the NSG. Both datasets underpin efficient and effective services, bringing direct service delivery benefits to users.

These unique reference numbers link datasets together and share information with other organisations who also use them. They provide a comprehensive, complete and consistent identifier throughout a property's life cycle – from planning permission or street naming through to demolition.

See https://www.geoplace.co.uk