Owen Boswarva's blog

This is the latest in an occasional 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 make available a new open address dataset released by North Tyneside Council.

Background

As described in previous posts, I have recently been requesting Council Tax address datasets from a number of 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/

Release from North Tyneside Council

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

The progress of this case was somewhat convoluted. Initially, the Council refused my access request on the basis that the information was already accessible to me by means of the Valuation Office's online Check your Council Tax band service. The Council also said: "The Revenues Team do not have an extractable report to be able to supply the address, council tax band and UPRN for all properties within the North Tyneside Council area."

Following my request for an internal review, the Council found the information ("after extensive investigation we have established that there is a reporting application that we have been able to use to extract this information") and disclosed a Council Tax property list containing all of the requested information other than the UPRNs (Unique Property Reference Numbers).

After some chasing and further emails the Council also confirmed permission for re-use of the disclosed information under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

However, the Council has continued to withhold the UPRNs, on the new basis that disclosure would prejudice the commercial interests of GeoPlace and Ordnance Survey:

The Authority is withholding your request for National UPRNs under section 43 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 states: (2) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).

Other Local Authorities which have released the information within the remit of your request hold information which has been created and maintained entirely separately from its LLPG and any Ordnance Survey Address Base product. Our equivalent dataset was created in a different way.

It is our view that release of this information would prejudice the commercial interests of both GeoPlace and Ordnance Survey. Ordnance Survey is a wholly owned Government company, whose objectives include "to operate as a sustainably profitable commercial organisation, on a self-financing basis" (see Ordnance Survey's Shareholder Framework Document available under the heading 'Useful documents' on our Governance pages – OS Governance | Home | OS (ordnancesurvey.co.uk). Ordnance Survey generates revenue from the sale of its products, including the Address Base products, and pays a royalty on such sales to GeoPlace. Even though any disclosed information would only be provided subject to copyright and database right, and so could only be used for limited purposes, and could not, for example, legitimately be made available to others, we would then need to make the same information available to others who request it under the FOIA.

This would lead to a significant risk of copyright and/or database right infringement; in addition to a loss of commercial revenue and there would be a significant cost in both monitoring the use of the data and enforcing the intellectual property rights of GeoPlace, Ordnance Survey and the Crown.

The above rationale doesn't make much sense. Given that the Council has been able to release the property addresses themselves for re-use under the Open Government Licence it is unlikely that disclosure of the corresponding UPRNs would prejudice any third-party commercial interests. National lists of UPRNs are available as open data. Even if the relevant UPRNs are derived from AddressBase, Ordnance Survey's Open Identifiers policy permits members of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (which includes North Tyneside Council) to share UPRNs appended to their own data under the terms of the OGL.

However, the Council has declined to consider this matter any further.

You can download my correspondence with the Council, including the information as disclosed: CT_address_list_North_Tyneside_FOI-7516.zip (7.18 MB).

As the Council has withheld the UPRNs I have not been able to create a geocoded version of the Council Tax property list.

Previous posts related to the campaign for open address data in the UK

Tewkesbury Borough Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (1 May 2025)

Norwich City Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (30 April 2025)

South Norfolk District Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (29 April 2025)

Broadland District Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (28 April 2025)

Calderdale Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (26 April 2025)

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (25 April 2025)

Broxtowe Borough Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (24 April 2025)

Basildon Borough Council has released its Council Tax address list as open data (23 April 2025)