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 Harlow 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 Harlow Council

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

In its initial response, the Council disclosed a list of local property references and corresponding Council Tax bands. The Council withheld the addresses on the basis of the exemption in section 31(1)(a) of the FOI Act ("law enforcement – prevention and detection of crime"), and maintained that it did not hold the Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) corresponding to the properties on the list.

Following an internal review the Council said the exemption had been incorrectly applied, and disclosed an updated list with full addresses and postcodes.

The Council also conceded that it did hold the UPRNs "within the GIS function" – but has withheld them on the basis of the exemption in section 21 of the FOI Act ("accessible by other means") "as the information is publicly accessible online via OS Open UPRN". The Council's reliance on that exemption is dubious, but as the Council had completed its internal review it was not obliged to consider my counter-arguments.

The Council has granted permission for re-use of the disclosed information under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3 (OGL). The Council has also said:

"The Council can confirm that the information provided to you was extracted from the Council's Council Tax database. We are not aware of any third-party intellectual property rights affecting the information disclosed to you, nor have we identified any restrictions that would prevent the Council from authorising its re-use."

You can download my correspondence with the Council: CT_address_list_Harlow_DP865436081_[NO_DATA_correspondence_only].zip (1.0 MB).

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

Access to this dataset

I am not publishing Harlow 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 in 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 Harlow Council were submitted on 3 August 2026 and the Council's reference is DP865436081.

More about Harlow Council's address dataset

Harlow Council has disclosed its Council Tax address dataset to me in the form of an Excel workbook 'DP865436081 Updated Information for Disclosure.xlsx' that contains 40,853 records. Each record includes the full address and postcode (combined in a single field), Council Tax valuation band, and local property reference for a domestic property in the Harlow Council area.

The information in the list seems to be well-maintained. As UPRNs have not been supplied, the records cannot be geocoded at property level using open data sources.