December 2004 Archives

Download my latest research newsletter to find out what I've been doing during the second half of this year.

Highlights:

Lithuania may be a model for UK's GI Strategy.

The Action Plan for UK Value Maps takes shape - but no figures yet. I need feedback by 20 Dec if possible.

Addressing addressing and Valuebill - am I ill-informed? (If so, so's Capgemini).

HM Treasury to learn about LVT in Oxford next month.

I'm now on two Councils - one is AGI's.

Resolution for 2005: to finish my PhD! Just like that......

Is thisthe best we can do, until basic property information is more reliable and freely available?

The map, by David Holloway using data originally from the Land Registry, shows the approximate cost of land for housing in each local authority area in England and Wales. The figures are adjusted by Duncan Elliott for regional construction costs and make some allowance for the mix of house types sold in each area during the period reported on (in this case 4Q 2002).

The Government project that puts geography into property taxation could rejuvenate and help finance the work that local authorities need to do to complete their local land and property gazetteers. But there needs to be a new business model for the national compilation, the NLPG.

Valuebill after Acacia is my paper for the Association for Geographic Information (AGI) which their Council meeting on 15 December will be asked to endorse. It asks AGI to work with the Local Government Association to raise the profile of UK Addressing among elected politicians and users of land and property gazetteers in all sectors.

At present, councils are expected to invest considerable resources in street naming and numbering, then in the back-office processing of data that many public agencies need - all without financial reward. Whilst they are required to pay Royal Mail and Ordnance Survey for the use of postcodes and geo-codes associates with local gazetteers, these (and other) central government agencies can use the results without charge - yet councils have to buy back the data they themselves produce, once it is merged into the NLPG!

Several journalists have taken an interest in my research, especially the GI Policy aspects. I was quoted in the Economist of 27 Nov (page 35 UK edition) in an article "Where is everybody?" and in the following week's Wednesday "Society" section of the Guardian an "Inside View" column in my name was published in the eGovLocal series - for councillors to write about their 'bee in bonnet'.

The issues covered here will be pursued in other forums, notably the Association for Geographic Information (AGI), which meets on 15 Dec to discuss what advise it should give on funding the completion of the National Land & Property Gazetteer (NLPG)