Read our news articles and briefing notes

  • The Royal Mail’s troubles may damage a vital part of the UK’s digital infrastructure - The Royal Mail is in trouble and its future is uncertain. Its future is regularly debated in the newspapers, and high on the political agenda, but the headlines have missed that the Royal Mail plays a key role in maintaining the UK’s official list of addresses: the names and locations of the houses and offices […]
  • Response to call for evidence on geospatial opportunities - Background The UK government’s Geospatial Commission has published a call for evidence on geospatial opportunities across the the economy. This is our response. In it we:   Focus on geospatial reference data – things like address data, unique identifiers, and official registers – rather than the broader topic of location data. Highlight the global trend […]
  • Some of the problems bad address data cause - A picture of a street in Exeter with a missing house, CC-BY-SA Anthony Vosper https://www.geograph.org.uk/more.php?id=2797626 Our work to improve the UK’s address data is not only motivated by the future social and economic benefits, but also by a desire to fix the very real problems that the UK’s bad address data causes. When we launched […]
  • Briefing: 2022 consultation on the National Underground Asset Register - 1. Background: the consultation The Geospatial Commission is part of the Cabinet Office and sets the UK’s geospatial strategy. The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) forms part of this strategy. NUAR is intended to be ‘​​a digital map of all underground pipes and cables’. The strategy argues that ‘a national approach [to underground asset mapping] […]
  • Let’s stop the UK’s underground data going the same way as its address data - Geospatial data is vital infrastructure for our country, but we’ve made some mistakes in the past. Let’s stop the UK’s underground data going the same way.    Geospatial data about places and things helps us get the services we need. It helps get parcels delivered to the right house, helps us know who we can […]