GeoPlace has announced the winners of this year’s Data Quality and Improvement Awards. Croydon Council has been awarded Platinum Status for excellence for the management of its Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and its Local Street Gazetteer (LSG).
The Platinum Awards for Address and Street Data Management were presented on 22nd May at the GeoPlace annual conference, which was attended by over 450 data management specialists. The Awards are only given to authorities who have maintained the highest level of quality over the past year, measured by returns to GeoPlace.
The Address data, maintained by Stuart Henderson-Smith’s LLPG team, forms a critical part of the national infrastructure. The address data it contains is not only central to the council’s own service delivery but also feeds into a national database used by central government, emergency services, utility providers, and more. This enables joined-up working and smarter decisions, at both local and national levels.
The UPRNs held within the Address data is described by the Local Government Association (LGA) as “key to almost everything that’s delivered or achieved by councils.” When well-managed, it acts as a golden thread, linking systems and services, and improving outcomes for residents and businesses alike.
Mark Smith is the Local Street Custodian responsible for maintaining the LSG, the central database for street information within Croydon.
Local Street Gazetteers are the building blocks of the National Street Gazetteer (NSG) — a centralised, authoritative dataset used by councils, utility companies, and government agencies. Through regular updates from local authorities, the NSG provides a national view of all publicly maintained streets in England and Wales. This data supports coordination of streetworks, minimises disruption on the network, and enables everything from utility excavations and road closures to route planning and emergency services response.
The awards highlight the vital role of Address and Street Custodians across England and Wales in collecting and curating this data. Their work promotes better data management across authorities, demonstrating the skill and commitment required to maintain high standards in ever-changing datasets.
Presenting the award to Stuart Henderson-Smith, Croydon’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer Custodian and Mark Smith, Croydon’s Local Street Custodian, Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace, said:
“Croydon Council has set an example that we want to recognise on a national stage. Managing both address and street data to this level takes skill, commitment and dedication to constant improvement and data quality. The resulting data delivers numerous benefits both locally and nationally, alleviating congestion and minimising disruption caused by street and road works and improving air quality. Everything that local government does happens somewhere, this precise location information is essential for councils to deliver services to the residents they serve.”
Notes:
GeoPlace’s Exemplar Awards
The Exemplar Awards highlight Custodians' roles within their authorities and enable their work to be more widely promoted to all parts of the authority. They allow the many services that use address and street data to see the high standard of the data is externally recognised. From radical transformation initiatives saving millions of pounds for local authorities, to smaller projects improving data management by using the local address and street gazetteers in innovative ways, almost every aspect of local government business is underpinned by high quality address and street data.
GeoPlace's awards highlight the Street and Addressing Custodians' work helping to curate and maintain that data. Promoting their work helps to highlight the importance of their role, and the potential for this data to deliver ever-more efficient and effective services for their communities.
About GeoPlace
GeoPlace LLP is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association (LGA) and Ordnance Survey.
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. Ordnance Survey 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.
The Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) and the Unique Street Reference Number (USRN) are the unique identifiers for every addressable location and street in Great Britain. They are created by local authorities who have the statutory authority to name and number every street and property and Ordnance Survey who identify objects on the landscape which may otherwise not attract an address.
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 â from planning permission or street naming through to demolition.
