Image source: GeoPlace
A handful of local authorities and a council data custodian have been named as winners of the GeoPlace Exemplar Awards.
The organisation – a partnership between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey – said the accolades reflect the improvement in systems and processes made within the national infrastructure for street and address data management that it maintains.
Waverley Council carried off the 2024 Exemplar Award for its outstanding work in producing and maintaining high quality data and delivering best practice. The project team worked with stakeholders from different services to ensure certain gazetteer data is being used most efficiently - putting unique property reference numbers (UPRNs) at the heart of every service, and ensuring accurate addressing across the council.
As a result, the council has total confidence in the gazetteer being the only source of location and address data.
Outstanding contribution
The Peer Award went to Karen Hawkes, custodian for Denbighshire County Council and until recently chair for Wales Address and deputy chair for Wales Street, for an outstanding contribution to the addressing and street community.
Colleagues highlighted how her tireless focus on promotion of the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and Local Street Gazetteer (LSG) across council services has resulted in more use and improved quality in the most challenging situations, such as during the Covid pandemic when Denbighshire was carrying out shielding calls.
Commendations have also gone to Mark Percival at Rugby Borough Council for his work in championing GIS at multiple organisations, and to Rachel Antcliffe at Leeds City Council for her pro-active approach to serving the LLPG community.
The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames won the Data Linking Award for its commitment to ensuring the integrity and scope of data collected prior to the 2021 Census.
The discovery of multiple 'unrecorded' properties sparked investigations and a real desire to get to the roots of the issue. Significant outcomes included the discovery of 3,000 additional properties in the borough and neighbouring Sutton, and the establishment of new wards to ensure proportional representation on the council.
Big improvements
The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham won the Improvement Award for Addresses and Wigan Borough Council won the Improvement Award for Streets. The councils were judged to have made the biggest improvement across GeoPlace’s Improvement Schedule criteria between April 2023 and March 2024.
Nick Chapallaz, managing director of GeoPlace, said: “I want to not only congratulate each authority on its physical achievements, but also commend the community spirit that's now underpinning this work. This is a complex ecosystem, with the integrity of myriad datasets and records depending on the efforts of some extraordinary people.
“As always, I’m looking forward to the results of this year’s Exemplar Awards being shared among colleagues seeking inspiration.”
