Infrastructure for spatial information in the European Community (INSPIRE)
INSPIRE regulation comes into force in the UK
The European INSPIRE Directive requires that member states provide public access to location based data related to the environment according to specific technical standards. Legislation that enables INSPIRE in England, Wales and Nothern Ireland came into force on 31 December 2009.
INSPIRE Directive (PDF, 3 pages, 122KB)
Background to INSPIRE
INSPIRE is a European initiative to facilitate the sharing of spatial information amongst public sector organisations at the local, regional, national and international level with the aim to assist policy-making in relation to activities that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment.
An introduction to INSPIRE and an introduction to the creation of SDIC (PDF, 1 page, 82KB)
The EU INSPIRE Geographic Information Directive - Consultation
We seek your help and advice. The Inspire Directive aims to provide better access to spatial data through a better structured data infrastructure.
Inspire has implications for local government, and we have been working with people in local government to influence early work on the Directive. Implementation of the Directive is at a key stage. Before transposing into UK law, Defra issued a formal public consultation on 3rd March which sets out proposals for implementing INSPIRE in the UK: http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/inspire/index.htm
Organisations and individuals are free to respond to the consultation. However, we seek your help in preparing a LGA / IDeA response on behalf of the sector. If we can take a collective, sector owned view, our voice will be more powerful. We seek your views either on the direct questions posed, or other comments you want to make.
Please see the introductory letter for information on how to input to the consultation.
The Local Government Position paper provides an explanatory note about local governments position and involvement in the INSPIRE transposition programme.