Birthday marks Successful Two Years for OS MasterMap Address Layer 2

More than 21, 000 users across industry, commerce and the public sector are benefiting from the most accurate link between every British property address and its location “on the map”.

The Environment Agency is planning to use it to support activities such as issuing permits, flood-risk management and identifying companies’ green credentials.

Other customers include National Grid, Norwich Union, Highways Agency, Welsh Assembly Government, Yorkshire Water Services, Metropolitan Police, Bristol City Council and Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation. 

Address Layer 2 includes more than 27 million postal addresses and 1.5 million non-addressable properties. Around 300 Ordnance Survey field surveyors across the country constantly update the information. This work is bolstered by updates from Royal Mail and others, resulting in a publication cycle that averages 1.3 million changes every six weeks.                                                             

The non-addressables, or OWPAs (objects without postal addresses), in Address Layer 2 include utilities plant, community halls, churches and public conveniences. They all contain a geographic address that includes the nearest road name and locality, as well as up to four classifications or descriptions to support searching – vital for critical activities such as emergency response.

Managers at Hampshire Fire and Rescue trialled the data for three months and have now purchased it to use in their community fire risk information system. Fire Safety Manager John Hinton says: "The OWPA and MOWPA classifications and the postal addresses together serve as an excellent base for our requirements to identify buildings for fire-risk-reduction activities."

In the utilities sector, Thames Water, Bristol Water and Wessex Water have all used Address Layer 2 to verify the locations of thousands of properties that receive their services but for which they had insufficient addressing data.

Another water company enjoying the benefits is Southern Water. Pete Brown, the company’s IT Business Programme Manager, says: "The additional data in Address Layer 2, particularly the details of multiple residences and properties without postal addresses, are of real benefit to us and are allowing us to identify more accurately all of the buildings receiving our services."

National Grid used Address Layer 2 to help match the spatial coordinates of meter point addresses in the West Midlands with data from its own demand system, including the locations of network pipes and node numbers. "Using the Ordnance Survey Address Layer 2 data resulted in a cost of less than 5% of what this would have cost as a manual man-hours process," says Dave Goldsmith, Distribution Customer Support Specialist at National Grid.