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 describe a new open address dataset released by Huntingdonshire District Council.

Background

As related in previous posts, I have been requesting Council Tax address datasets from local authorities in England, and asking for permission to re-use the data under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

I have created a landing page on my Datadaptive site with download links and other information about the Council Tax address datasets released as open data so far:

www.datadaptive.com/addr/

I recently published a progress update on that project.

Release from Huntingdonshire District Council

The latest council to release its Council Tax address list is Huntingdonshire District Council in the East of England region.

This is another case that took a while to resolve. I submitted my requests in March 2026 and the Council did not provide a substantive response until August 2026.

The Council disclosed a list of local property references and corresponding Council Tax bands, but said that all of its address data was "derived under licence" from Ordnance Survey products and carried "terms and conditions as regards further disclosure."

The Council withheld the addresses on the basis of exemptions in sections 43(2) and 21 of the FOI Act ("prejudice to commercial interests" and "accessible by other means" respectively), and also applied section 21 to withhold the Unique Property References Numbers (UPRNs) that corresponded to properties on the Council Tax list.

Fortunately, following my request for an internal review, the Council found that its original position was mistaken and that the exemptions do not apply:

"Upon review of how the organisation compiles its Council Tax Lists, as highlighted in your internal review request, we have confirmed that there is no derived data within these and they are compiled locally. With locally compiled data there is no possibility of the Council breaching terms of any licensed data. I cannot identify any prejudice arising from the disclosure of this data, the council was incorrect to rely on the exemption under Section 43(2). On that basis I uphold this aspect of your internal review.

"Given the council will no longer rely on Section 21 I uphold this aspect of your internal review."

The Council has supplied an updated Council Tax list with full addresses, postcodes, and UPRNs in addition to the local property references and Council Tax bands.

The Council has also granted permission for re-use of all of the disclosed information under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

You can download my correspondence with the Council: https://www.owenboswarva.com/FOI/CT_address_list_Hunts_FOI-20929_[NO_DATA_correspondence_only].zip (0.71 MB).

Thanks to Council staff for facilitating the disclosure and open licensing of this data.

Access to this dataset

I am not publishing Huntingdonshire District Council's address dataset here, due to the non-specific but lingering risk of further unsubstantiated claims of infringement from Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace LLP. You can read more about that issue in my blog post from May.

However, there is nothing to stop you asking the Council directly for a copy of the data file. For tips on submitting access to information and re-use requests see this other blog post. My requests to Huntingdonshire District Council were submitted on 16 March 2026 and the Council's reference is FOI/20929.

More about Huntingdonshire District Council's address dataset

Huntingdonshire District Council has disclosed its Council Tax address dataset to me in the form of an Excel workbook 'CT All Bands (002).xlsx' that contains 85,237 records. Each record includes the full address and postcode (combined in a single field), Council Tax band, local property reference, and Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) for a domestic property in the Huntingdonshire District Council area.

The information in the list seems to be well-maintained. The UPRN is missing for only one record.

It was possible to match 85,234 (99.996%) of the 85,237 records in the Council Tax list to records in the September 2026 release of Ordnance Survey's OS Open UPRN product. This means virtually all of the property records in the dataset can be geocoded for mapping and geographic analysis of domestic properties in the Huntingdonshire District Council area.