Owen Boswarva's blog

This is the latest in a series of blog posts about the campaign for open address data in the UK. Previous posts are listed at the bottom.

In this post I provide another progress update on my project to unlock Council Tax property lists maintained by local authorities in the UK.

If you tuned in to the previous episodes, you will recall that in May I removed links to Council Tax address datasets released by 57 councils, following receipt of a claim from Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace LLP that publication of datasets of that nature infringes their intellectual property rights.

That dramatic development is described in my post of 12 May, with my reply to OS/GeoPlace set out in a post of 22 May. The OS/GeoPlace claim has not been corroborated by the councils involved, as far as I know, except in three cases that I will mention below.

But I'm not going to go through all the lore again in this post. If this subject is new to you, the best starting point is my project page at datadaptive.com/addr/.

Councils continue to release their Council Tax address datasets

The good news is that since the end of May more than 40 additional councils have disclosed their Council Tax lists with permission for re-use on open terms.

I have continued to describe each of those releases in blog posts, but have not been publishing the datasets myself.

As of today I am aware of 97 councils in England, Wales, and Scotland that have released their address datasets as open data. Those datasets contain a total of more than ten million address records for residential properties, with the corresponding Council Tax bands. That's roughly a third of Britain's housing stock.

The full list is at datadaptive.com/addr/.

The list includes 40 local address datasets that are currently publicly accessible, which means you can download them for re-use. 27 of those datasets are published on mySociety's WhatDoTheyKnow site, five in council disclosure logs, four on other council sites, and four remain available from online locations administered by me. (A few of the datasets are available from more than one source.)

Those 40 datasets contain a total of slightly under four million address records. Most of the datasets include Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs), which means the property records can be geocoded for mapping and geographic analysis. Datasets are available covering Leeds, Cornwall, Kirklees, Wigan, Camden, and many other areas.

But some councils have withdrawn their open address datasets

Additionally, there are 19 councils that previously released their Council Tax lists as open data but changed their minds after Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace started asking questions.

Only one of those has contacted me since the OS/GeoPlace infringement claim in May: East Riding of Yorkshire. However, two other councils whose data was affected by that claim, Isle of Wight and West Suffolk, have indicated to other requesters that permission for re-use under the Open Government Licence was previously granted in error.

Further correspondence from Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace

This week I received a couple of additional emails from a lawyer for OS/GeoPlace, following up on the reply to their IP claim that I sent in May.

I was not particularly expecting a response; OS/GeoPlace have made only a few minor comments, and have not engaged with my concerns about their approach.

OS/GeoPlace have seemingly conceded that the Council Tax address datasets disclosed by two London councils, which were in scope of the wide-ranging IP claim communicated to me in May, do not after all contain their IP rights.

With regard to Council Tax data supplied by Barnet Council, OS/GeoPlace have said:

"We are now in a position to inform you that we have held discussions with Barnet Council, and Barnet has provided an explanation as to why it considers its Council Tax address data does not include the intellectual property of Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace; as a result of those discussions, GeoPlace and OS does not object to Barnet Council providing you with its Council Tax data on such terms as Barnet decides in its own discretion."

With regard to Council Tax data supplied by Merton Council, OS/GeoPlace have said:

"We are now in a position to inform you that GeoPlace and OS do not object to the London Borough of Merton providing you with its Council Tax data on such terms as Merton decides in its own discretion."

More address datasets to come

So far I have submitted access and re-use requests for Council Tax address datasets to 303 councils, starting in late 2024 but mostly over the past year.

97 of those cases remain in progress. That includes five that are currently the subject of complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and a small number where the main issues have been settled but I've followed up with "meta requests" for correspondence or internal documentation.

There are a significant number of closed cases where I think there was a sound basis for complaining to the ICO, but I haven't done so because I am mindful that the regulator is under severe resource constraints. Reportedly the ICO has a wait time of approximately nine months, following initial receipt, before it assigns an FOI complaint to a caseworker for investigation.

There are 20 or so councils in England and Wales, all with small housing stocks, that I haven't yet contacted. I expect to send requests to those over the next month.

Screenshot of geocoded North Devon Council address data visualised in Leaflet with background mapping from OpenStreetMap