GeoPlace has published a guidance document aimed at local authorities in England and Wales who wish to create and maintain Basic Land and Property Unit(BLPU)polygons.The guidance is also aimed at those that want to understand the reasons and business benefits of maintaining this type of data.
The guidance was compiled by a Working Group responding to requests from the local authority community who were seeking assistance on creating and maintaining this type of information more efficiently and consistently across local government.The guidance should be read in conjunction with the Data Entry Conventions for the NLPG and Data Transfer Format v7.3 documents.The contents of the guidance are optional,aimed at authorities who wish to create and maintain this type of information.
The Working Group undertook a wide ranging consultation process which informed the final document.
The guidance documents the following areas,together with a number of examples:
business process
business rules
rule base for data entry
conventions for maintenance of the data
business case and justification of undertaking the creation of BLPU polygons.
The guidance states that the creation of BLPU polygons has wide-ranging benefits for a local authority,particularly in the following departments:
Building control
Land charges
Social services
Education
Transport
Planning
Economic development
The Working Group concluded that whilst the creation of BLPU polygons requires an initial investment,the return on that investment can be quickly realised with discernible quantitative and qualitative benefits across the whole organisation and partner organisations,with at least 25%efficiency savings to be realised.
GeoPlace is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey.GeoPlace's role is to create and maintain the National Address Gazetteer and the National Street Gazetteer for England and Wales,providing definitive sources of publicly-owned spatial address and street data for Great Britain.Through agreement with Scotland's Improvement Service Company,coverage has been extended to include Scotland'.