Location Strategy

The Local Government Association welcomes publication of the long awaited Location Strategy, by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The strategy proposes improvements to UK geographic information that will help councils plan and organise better, more effective and efficient local services. This focus on geography matters to councils, and the people and businesses they serve, because they need answers to question such as:

• Where is my local recycling centre?
• Will flooding happen near me?
• How do I have this graffiti removed?

The Location Strategy sets out objectives to:

• know what data we have and avoid duplicating it
• use common reference data so we know we are talking about same places
• share the data easily through common technology, standards and business relationships
• gain the appropriate skills to support its use
• drive strong governance to enable change which will be led by the Location Council which is being set up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Local Government has an example of what the Strategy aims to achieve: the National Land and Property Gazetteer. This provides consistent land and property information in England and Wales (with equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland) through a national hub and is based on common standards for data and processes. This has benefits for people and councils by providing links to a range of services from planning, to social care, voting and tax and benefits citizens by offering the possibility that services can be linked together throughout the council thereby reducing the time taken to report issues and speeding up service provision.

The Location strategy also provides for UK implementation of the European Directive on the INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe (INSPIRE). This provides a set of rules that require consistent standards for geographic data and public access to that data.  Local government will need to comply with the requirements of INSPIRE.

Department for Communities and Local Government: Location Strategy

For further information contact: tim.allen@lga.gov.uk