GeoPlace 2021 and the importance of accurate UPRN data

The following blog is written by members of our team Chris Wright, Geocortex Division Manager, Aled Nicholas, Senior Consultant and Phill Ridley, Senior Business Development Consultant.

Chris Wright

Having worked at 1Spatial for over 30 years, I have seen how the accuracy of data in decision making has become an increasingly important factor within an organisation and spatial data has really come to the forefront.

1Spatial sponsored this year's GeoPlace Annual Conference, which I found very informative and brought home the importance of accurate data.  With over 700 attendees across the two-day event, it’s one of the more popular events I have attended recently.

The focus of the event was the use of UPRN (Unique Property Reference Number) and USRN (Unique Street Reference Number).

The COVID19 pandemic has proliferated data sharing across local authority teams to identify and monitor vulnerable people in society, the importance of accurate addressing data that can be shared really came to the forefront during the conference. 

What became clear, was that having all information identified with a UPRN or USRN would make life a lot easier.  The problem lies with legacy data and information.  Different departments within a council will hold information in different ways.  Also, with free text fields being available it is often easy to hold the same name in different databases in different ways such as ‘Smith’ or ‘Smythe’.  The same is true for addresses, they also can be held in different was such as ‘Road’ and ‘Rd’ or ‘Street’ and ‘St’.

1Integrate can be used to compare and update an organisations data holdings against a Gold Standard set of addresses such as that held by GeoPlace.  1Integrate allows automatic updates to information based on rules.  If the criteria are not met then an address can be flagged for user intervention, a user can be driven to addresses that are flagged for user intervention using tools like Geocortex. 

The combined use of both technologies can enable the creation of joined up data across departments with the implementation of the UPRN and USRN making it easy to identify vulnerable people.

Aled Nicholas

Along with Chris, I also attended the GeoPlace Annual Conference. I also work in the Geocortex Division at 1Spatial and have been a Senior Consultant in the team for the past three years. Around a decade ago I was working at a local authority as a GIS Team Leader, where my team was responsible for the submitting of data to the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and Street Naming and Numbering (SNN). Ultimately, this is the data that forms both UPRN and USRN that Chris mentions above. 

One of the heartening things I took from the conference is that great strides have been made in the decade since I was last involved. It really is good to see that all authorities LLPG/GIS teams are continuing their hard work in ensuring that accurate property and street information is made publicly available, but what was even better to hear is that authorities as a whole (not just the teams responsible for the submission of the data) are buying into the importance of up to date and accurate data. 

But more can always be done...

As we heard throughout the course of the two days, there are still examples of authorities or organisations with different departments who have their own address databases – essentially having multiple versions of the truth. While it is never a good way of working when there are variations on how these addresses are stored (as Chris points out, the multiple versions of “Street” being one example) it can lead to reputational damage if this data is incorrect or out of date.

Having correct information has been particularly pertinent over the past eighteen months. Like everyone everywhere, COVID19 has had a big impact on how Local Authorities have had to work and it has brought into focus how vital this information is. 

We heard from emergency services, and how UPRN and USRN is used to identify vulnerable people and how they can then focus their work to prioritise the most vulnerable in society. If Local Authorities needed any morale boost about the work they do, then it can’t get much higher than that!

As Chris mentioned, 1Integrate is a great tool to ensure that data being submitted is correct and conforms to an agreed criteria. Once this data is in the public domain, there are endless possibilities with how this can be used in the Geocortex suite of products. If you wanted a web mapping application with a simple gazetteer built in, Geocortex Essentials or Geocortex Web will give you just that. If you want to combine journey planning to local amenities through the use of UPRNs, Geocortex Workflow will do just that. Or if you want to run a report on the number of repaired roads in your area based on USRNs,  Geocortex Workflow and Geocortex Reporting will allow you to do exactly that.

While these past months have been an unimaginable nightmare in many ways, at the very least it has brought in to focus the importance of accurate UPRN and USRN data. It was great to hear from the Minister of State for Housing, Christopher Pincher, about how positive he and the government as a whole are about UPRN data. Knowing that this is something that is actively discussed and encouraged in the upper echelons of government makes me hopefully that in another decade the only discussion will be around maintaining the data, not where improvements are needed.

Phill Ridley

The GeoPlace Annual Conference was a fantastic event, and with such a large number of delegates brought many interesting presentations and conversations highlighting the importance of spatial data, particularly the use of UPRNs. As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns ease many organisations are taking lessons learnt from the past year to identify good practice moving forward.

One of these is embracing the digital, data and technology, and I particularly enjoyed talking to emergency services who attended the conference about their use of location data and UPRNs. UPRNs provide a clear, undisputed record of a location and can save seconds in an emergency response which helps the emergency services save as many lives as possible. In addition to emergency responses, location data helps the emergency services plan and prevent by identifying patterns and trends and predicting what is going to happen in the future. 

All these applications highlighted the importance of good quality location data, and it was fantastic to see the GIS industry embrace this desire for good quality data and use of UPRNs at the conference.

If you would like to learn more about the importance of UPRN’s or book a call with a member of the team, please do get in touch.