Addressing

the UK

geoplace.co.uk
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Addressing the UK

Addressing the UK
National efficiency is To achieve that level of insight, so
that confident decisions might be
essential if we are to grow made, we need more people and
businesses to work efficiently, and
the UK economy. Rapid, to share information effectively. In

transformational responses
short, we need wider adoption of
the UK Geospatial Strategy– a shared

are crucial if we want that resource that’s based on the principle

of ‘capture authoritative data once,
economy to flourish on use it many times’.

the international stage. To The value of this data infrastructure

is immense, and geospatial data is
secure these outcomes, its core component. When we can
understand where people are, what
we must understand what they need and where and why, we

needs to change, when,

can then shape the policies that
serve them best.

how, and where. Addressing is key. We can address

the future together, with a joined-
up approach that harnesses
the power of geospatial data to
deliver maximum efficiency and
effectiveness for all.
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Addressing the UK

The Importance of Data

Accurate and timely data and information is a cornerstone
of economic progress. The UK government has already
highlighted the importance of data generally in achieving
health, economic, social and environmental outcomes with
the publication of a National Data Strategy. Additionally, the
Geospatial Commission’s UK Geospatial Strategy aims to
unlock the significant economic, social and environmental
opportunities offered by location data and boost the UK’s
global geospatial expertise.

Linkable data is the ‘golden thread’ that connects both the

public and private sector to effective, efficient, people-
centric services. Fraud detection and prevention; emergency
response provision; our continued COVID response – all of
these services depend on having access to and the ability to
manage complex data at scale.

Commerce also depends on huge quantities of data to

facilitate banking, lending, insurance and logistics and property
transactions. In short, access to an authoritative public sector
data framework can provide the private sector with a foundation
that can surface a myriad of benefits and multiple opportunities
to innovate, and deliver immense rewards.

The Essence of Location

Geospatial data – the information that defines where
something is located – is a core component of the strategy
that underpins our powerful, national data infrastructure:

• Insights that connect people to places, where services are

needed, and how policy should be shaped to best service
those needs
• Accurate and up to date geospatial data including
authoritative geospatial addressing drives efficiency
and service transformation, nationwide
• Geospatial address data can link disparate datasets
authoritatively, enabling analysis and creating new
opportunities for innovation.

In short, economic prosperity and thriving communities are

significantly enhanced by place-based solutions and policy-
making – and to understand those locations, we need a way
to identify them.

Consistently. Accurately. With enduring confidence.

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Addressing the UK

Unique location identifiers

— UPRNs and USRNs
By using unique location identifiers, we can more and applications that store or publish data sets
easily identify where and how best to improve containing property and street information.
services and outcomes for people and businesses. A recognition of their value as ‘a golden thread’
Better still, authoritative address and street data with in linking and connecting processes and systems
unique location identifiers provide a framework for across government. Look no further than the
linking all kinds of information efficiently – data that increasingly effective exchange of data between
needs to be cleansed of personal details, perhaps, health services and government bodies based on
or datasets with few fields in common. The potential the UPRN in the face of the COVID pandemic.
for efficiencies across government are significant.
It is almost impossible to name a type of data or a Effectively, the government mandate confirms that
pool of information that doesn’t have an element best practice involves using these identifiers all
location within it. of the time, at every opportunity. The identifiers
themselves are the definitive set of references for
To embed this value at the heart of society, the every addressable location in the UK, and they’re
Government through its Open Standards Board also available to the private sector through an
has mandated the use of the Unique Property Open Government Licence and the AddressBase®
Reference Numbers (UPRNs) and Unique Street range of products from Ordnance Survey. The
Reference Numbers (USRNs) - as the common aspiration is that this level of accessibility will
identifiers for government systems, services encourage wider adoption.
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Realising the Value of Addressing

Local authorities have been creating, Take-up of AddressBase has been
maintaining and integrating standardised widespread. Anyone using one or more
address data into their systems and of the AddressBase products has access
processes for some 20 years – details of to UPRNs, (and their ‘sister’ reference,
property and street names and numbers, Unique Street Reference Numbers or
and features about every addressable USRNs) – and can tap into the immense
location in the country. This has already value of standardised, uniquely identified,
improved the way information is managed, geo-referenced address data. What’s more,
enabling better policy-making and more sophisticated use cases in almost every
efficient services across the public sector UK market sector is helping to drive the
with net benefits of up to £202 million development of the AddressBase products
from better use of the address and street themselves and the underlying processes
data that councils create and maintain. that maintain the data within them.
Based on the current rates of adoption, this
represents a return on investment for local Usually, we think of ‘an address’ as being
authorities, after discounting of 4:1. the description of where to find a property
or a dwelling. That may be where we
That data, which is collated by GeoPlace, live, a friend’s house, a business or an
is then made available to the wider public organisation that we want to contact – to
sector, the private sector, education and buy something, or to organise a delivery.
voluntary sectors by Ordnance Survey But an address can also be a description
through a portfolio of data products of features in the landscape or objects of
known as AddressBase, and a suite of interest. Parks, for example, or churches,
digital services. electricity substations – even bus shelters
have an official address.

Addresses are inherently focused on

location, both in the terms they use and
the way they are constructed. The term
‘geospatial address’ indicates that an
explicit piece of geographic information
has been added to the element, usually in
the form of coordinates, which will enable
the address to be located on a map.

We can exchange that information and

use it confidently and consistently, as long
as it has been formalised, made precise,
and uniquely identified with a reference
number: the UPRN.
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How we use
Geospatial
Data
When we combine geospatial
addresses with other information,
we can visualise all kinds of
insights on a map. We can add
layer upon layer of data to see
how places are associated with
or affected by other resources,
events, risks or behaviours.

For example: to assess the risks that might

be connected with a home, insurers can
analyse datasets that hold details about the
risk of flooding, crime, or other perils to that
single property – not a postcode, but an
individual building.

Joined-up geospatial addresses provide

the means for companies to improve the
quality of their service, and to enrich their
customer databases. Geospatial addresses
from AddressBase enable retail and
logistics companies to calculate confidence
limits around their delivery time predictions.
Working with UPRNs at the heart of their
internal systems, these firms can then
reduce costs and increase the number of
successful deliveries each day – offering
more precise, more reliable delivery slots.
Planners can ensure that the right charging
infrastructure is in place for electric
vehicles – making sure that easily-accessible
chargers are in the right place for as many
people as possible.
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Addressing the UK

In an increasingly digital world, geospatial

addresses are becoming far more important
to us as consumers, too. This data helps us to
access online services whenever we want to,
giving us choice and flexibility. In response,
to ensure our safety and protect themselves
from fraud, service providers employ Know
Your Customer (KYC) checks: these use
location insights to detect fraud, check for
compliance and assess risks.

Geospatial data is also fundamental to

consumer data enrichment. It provides the
means to understand customer interests,
values, behaviours, and habits. But we are
also using addresses now to prove who we
are, as much as what we do or where we do
it. In short, it’s becoming more and more
important for us to be using complete,
officially recognised and authoritative
address data.
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Addressing the UK

Authoritative
UK Geospatial
Addresses
GeoPlace, the limited liability
partnership owned equally by Local
Government Association (LGA) and OS
is responsible for collating, managing and
maintaining the primary UK authoritative
geospatial address data and this is made
widely available to customers as the AddressBase
products and specialist addressing services by
Ordnance Survey and their partners.
GeoPlace aggregates all Each local authority is by GeoPlace and available
Local Land and Property responsible for creating and as AddressBase is the most
Gazetteers (LLPGs) created maintaining a complete and complete and granular view
by local authorities adding granular set of all addressable of geospatial addresses
addresses from Improvement locations in their area. That available for the UK today.
Service in Scotland, Land and responsibility to name and
Property Services in Northern number properties and streets As part of the legislative
Ireland and the Isle of Man is defined in legislation. process, local authorities
and Channel Islands and Street names and property consult and share that
integrating datasets from the addresses are created as new information with interested
Valuation Office Agency (VOA), properties or changes to the parties as appropriate. This
Royal Mail and Ordnance built environment take place includes Royal Mail who
Survey amongst others. as part of their planning and then confirm or allocate a
development processes. postcode and post town.
Local authorities hold the That insight is available from
responsibility as the legal With over 45 million the Royal Mail Postcode
source of addresses in the UK addresses covering over 40 Address File (PAF). The PAF
and this means this aggregated million buildings and related contains all postal addresses
data is officially recognised and structures on almost 1.5 (but no further geospatial
authoritative. million streets, the data held data beyond the postcode)
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Addressing the UK

for the UK and this enables Royal Mail to deliver mail

and fulfil its obligation to provide a universal postal
service. The PAF contains over 30 million business
and residential addresses, and these are incorporated
by GeoPlace and local authorities and included in
AddressBase.

Updates to the PAF are sourced from local authorities

– information is added from their street naming
and numbering process – or through Royal Mail
operations, either through feedback from delivery
staff or PAF users. As local authorities have statutory
responsibilities for planning and street naming and
numbering, information about a property and its
address is generally recorded by the local authority
first, before becoming available via the Royal Mail.

These addresses are not just for the building itself.

They include the granular, specific detail that
identifies the location of flats, offices and other
recognised subdivisions within each building.
GeoPlace holds 2.5 billion data fields for address
and street records, including over 80 million links to
other datasets and a history of the changes that have
occurred on each record. Through a validation and
assurance process GeoPlace runs 364 address data
checks, 550 street data checks and 1,480 assurance
checks on each record before being accepted into
the database. This includes checks to ensure UPRNs
and USRNs are assigned appropriately and without
duplication. Data is enriched and transformed by
adding the best attributes from source datasets to
enhance overall quality of the product. It’s updated
daily by local authorities, GeoPlace receives over
2 million changes per month.
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Addressing the UK

Using the UPRN in

the Property Lifecycle
Local authorities are continuously The advantage of an authoritative,
engaged with the land and single point of reference – the UPRN –
property lifecycle. Their day-to- is that all historic, alias, and provisional
day activities include assessing forms of address can be recorded
planning applications, street naming against the same identifier.
and numbering, building and
environmental control, licensing, Within blocks of flats or offices, UPRNs
electoral registration, and assessment are structured into a corresponding
of council tax and non-domestic hierarchy of identifiers that describe
rateable value. each block and its component parts.
So, the block will be allocated a
To provide a consistent and standard parent UPRN, and each flat or office
approach, local authorities assign a located within the block will have its
UPRN to each new address record at own unique child UPRN, linked to the
the moment it is created. At the same overarching parent UPRN.
time, that UPRN’s location is recorded
using National Grid coordinates. If a property is demolished, then the
UPRN becomes historic. Information
The UPRN is definitive. In the same about the property is retained. The
way that every citizen has a National UPRN is never removed or reused. If
Insurance number, every vehicle a other buildings are built to take the
number plate, and every book features original property’s place, new UPRNs
an ISBN, every addressable location in are given to each new property on
Great Britain has one UPRN. Each one the site.
is unique. With this consistent identifier
in place, there is an unbreakable At each stage in the property life
link in any chain of businesses that’s cycle, the status of the property
exchanging details about land and is recorded in a series of logical
property, from planning permission codes. For example, before street
through to demolition and beyond. naming and numbering has been
This commonality delivers efficiency completed, a property in the early
gains in operational processes, and stages of development should be
it acts as the persistent and unique ‘Provisional’, its state may be recorded
identifier that’s needed to cross- as ‘Under Construction’. Later, when
reference disparate information. the property exists and street naming
and numbering is complete, the same
During its lifecycle, information building will have its status changed
about the address of a property may to ‘Approved’ and its state may be
change. This might come about due recorded as ‘In Use’.
to a change of name, perhaps; due
to a sub-division or aggregation of an
address within a building; or due to
a change of use, such as from single
occupancy to multiple occupancy.
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Standards and Governance

GeoPlace is the centre of excellence for addressing and
streets in the UK. It is the guardian and champion of exemplar
addressing information on a national scale.

The Limited Liability At the local authority level, checks. A regional and national
Partnership was created in those Local Land and Property structure ensures that councils
2011. GeoPlace works with all Gazetteers (and in Scotland, the promote effective and best
336 councils responsible for Corporate Address Gazetteers working practices and are
planning and the 174 local (CAGs)) are managed and properly represented. This
highways authorities in England maintained by an appointed structure also supports the
and Wales under a Data address data Custodian. The promotion of guidance and
Cooperation Agreement (DCA), Custodian is the key point tools for standardisation,
together with the Improvement of contact for all addressing such as data formats and data
Service in Scotland as the matters within and external entry conventions.
coordinating body for Scottish to the authority; they work
local authorities, the Land and alongside Street Naming and All LLPGs maintained by local
Property Services in Northern Numbering Officers on a daily authorities throughout England
Ireland, and with the Isle of Man basis, and they collaborate with and Wales and the equivalent
Government and the Channel planning, development control, CAGs maintained by local
Islands via Digimap. highways and billing teams. authorities in Scotland, are
managed in accordance with
A nationally consistent and GeoPlace provides advice, the British Standard (BS7666)
standard approach to the support, training and data for geographical referencing
maintenance of the authoritative matching tools to help local and addressing of land and
geospatial address data is Custodians create and use property. Further consistency
only possible due to the data their gazetteers in a way is introduced by the nationally
governance framework that is that conforms to national agreed Data Entry Conventions
operated and managed by the standards. This ensures the (DEC), which provide
GeoPlace team – providing the data they’re curating can be definitions and guidance for
basis for local authority data compiled seamlessly into consistent maintenance of the
to be managed as a strategic a single national dataset LLPGs and CAGs.
national asset. following rigorous quality
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Getting Access to UPRNs

UPRNs are available to the market as part of OS
AddressBase®, a portfolio of data products that’s been
jointly created by GeoPlace and Ordnance Survey (OS).

As the national mapping • Royal Mail postcodes and post A new AddressBase® product,
service, OS is responsible for town names (where matched to AddressBase® Core, was added
providing, promoting, marketing a UPRN) to OS’s addressing portfolio in
and licensing AddressBase®. • addresses with sub-divisions or July 2020. It is simplified, easy
The AddressBase® portfolio multiple occupants to use data product providing
comprises a family of related but all ‘live’ addresses with a weekly
distinct products. • objects without postal update frequency. It offers a
addresses such as bus shelters single line address and simplified
AddressBase® Premium is the or named ponds attribute structure, with cross-
flagship addressing product. It • cross-references to VOA data and references to PAF and OS
provides: OS MasterMap® Topography MasterMap®. Classification of
and Highways Network addresses is provided at both
• a UPRN for every
• street identifiers (Unique Street a primary and secondary level.
addressable location
Reference Numbers (USRNs)
• every authoritative local
authority geospatial address • coordinates
• classification for each address.

Identifying Property and Street Information

The AddressBase® products are free at the point Additionally, on 11th March 2021, the Government
of use for the public sector via the Public Sector Digital Service provided best practice guidance
Geospatial Agreement (PSGA). At the same time, the for creating a strategy to manage and support
Government Digital Service (GDS) Open Standards reference data for publishing. The guidance is
Board has mandated the use of the UPRN as an aimed at government employees who need to
open identifier for government systems, services publish reference data so others can use it across
and applications that store or publish data sets government. The guidance specifically highlights
containing property and street information. the use of UPRNs.

In July 2021, the Central Digital & Data Office (part of AddressBase® products are also available to
the Cabinet Office) issued new guidance to comply business customers and education institutions.
with the UPRN standard. It states that, if you work OS has network of more than 1,600 Licensed
in the public sector and you need to use address Partners in a wide range of markets. They license
data, such as property and street information, then the AddressBase® products to provide their
you should follow this guidance. Under the PSGA, customers with products and services.
the UPRN was made open. This included the launch
of a new OS Open URPN data product. This was
complimented by the launch of OS Open USRN,
OS Open TOID and OS Open Linked Identifiers.
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A Vision for The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS),

the Institute of Residential Property Management

Addressing the (IRPM) and The Lettings Industry Council have

outlined the value of this proposition for the land

Future – Together and property in particular. In May 2021, the Housing

Minister stated that UPRNs should be ‘baked in’ to
streamline house buying and selling.
Our vision is to move beyond the current practice of
UPRNs can link the information in records that
different organisations building separate datasets
have been created by land registration; local land
and batch-matching them to bring them together –
charges; energy performance certificates (EPCs);
by working with other bodies to connect businesses
confirmation of compliance with building regulations;
processes and link data through the property lifecycle.
planning permissions; council tax assessments; gas
For example, at the point at which a council tax and electricity safety certificates, and innumerable
valuation or property sale is made by the national documents provided by vendors. They can provide
agency responsible for valuation or land registration the ‘golden thread’ to bring these datasets together.
in that location, that information could be assigned
Imagine how the property sector would change if
its UPRN.
all of this information was connected authoritatively.
At the moment, data about individual properties Using the UPRN to link these data sources or any
is collected and held in different formats by many other relevant information is a key factor in building
different organisations involved in some aspect of a trusted digital data set. It speeds up the process, it
their formal administration. By better connecting reduces the number of failed transactions, and it helps
those processes through wider and earlier adoption to prevent fraudulent activity.
of the UPRN and embedding that link, the potential
exists to realise to ensure certainty, avoid duplication,
and release huge value.
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What’s Next?
Ultimately – through data improvements,
product enhancements, and the complete
integration of addresses, streets, buildings,
mapping and cadastre – this data will become
the backbone for an integrated set of land and
property registers. This will provide a platform
for innovation in the market, and will underpin
and stimulate the economic growth that the
Geospatial Commission are driving.

Moving forwards, GeoPlace supports the These include:

concept of single canonical datasets as • managing tax revenue streams
outlined by the Lord Maude Review published
in July 2021. A wide range of activities that • combatting fraud
underpin the growth fundamental to property • identifying citizens to be evacuated
and housing markets will be supported by during disaster management
integrating the official land and property • guiding the planning system in
registers via UPRNs. delivering sustainable development
• ensuring evidence-based decision
making at scale
• safeguarding environmentally
sensitive ecosystems
• underpinning ‘track and trace’
solutions during pandemics
• strengthening the resilience of our
buildings and cities
• mitigating the impact of
climate change.
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Addressing the UK
 GeoPlace® is a public sector limited liability partnership between
the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey

GeoPlace 157-197 Buckingham Palace Road · London · SW1W 9SZ

T. 020 7630 4600 @GeoPlaceLLP s.geo.place/linkedin www.geoplace.co.uk