Utilising definitive address and street data has significant benefits as opposed to relying on unverified, manually entered information. Some of these are listed below:
Benefit | Reason |
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Definitive, trusted data | Local authorities in England and Wales have a legal responsibility to name streets and number properties through their Street Naming and Numbering process. All properties and streets are assigned their officially known, legal representation through this process meaning the data is authoritative and can be trusted to be correct. No other version or permutation of the address or street name should exist other than what is held.
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Provides accurate and rapid identification | UPRNs and USRNs provide a precise and standardised reference for identifying individual properties and streets. This helps eliminate ambiguity and confusion, ensuring accurate identification and differentiation of properties and streets, even within complex or large developments.
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Improved communication and data sharing | UPRNs and USRNs facilitate sharing of property and street related data across different systems and organisations. This enables seamless data exchange between local authorities, central government, emergency services, utility providers, and the private sector, leading to better coordination and service delivery. UPRNs and USRNs have been mandated by central government since 2020 to be used wherever property or street information is referenced.
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Provides up-to-date data | With definitive address and street data, departments and their systems can maintain consistent and up-to-date records of properties and streets as these are constantly being created and maintained centrally by the respective Authority Custodian. This reduces errors and discrepancies and ensures changes on the ground are represented in the data, ready for it to be used. In fact, in most cases the data will hold more up-to-date information than what physically exists on the ground, for example, before construction has started. This is due to the various "lifecycle" triggers and "change intelligence" sources utilised.
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Enables spatial planning and analysis | UPRNs and USRNs support spatial planning and analysis due to possessing a geographic element. This allows each property and street to be positioned accurately in geographic space, enabling the mapping of departmental data to detect trends and provide visuals.
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Facilitates data-driven insights | UPRNs and USRNs facilitate data-linking due to being persistent, unique identifiers. Data from departments using these identifiers can be centralised and linked creating property or street-level views of service utilisation, vulnerability and maintenance priority. These can be used in many ways but ultimately provides a data-driven evidence base to make decisions or gather insights.
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Overall, integrating with UPRNs and USRNs provides a standardised and accurate means of identifying and referencing properties and streets.
They support efficient data management, coordination of services, accurate addressing, and informed decision-making in various sectors, leading to improved service delivery, better resource allocation, and effective spatial planning.
We have also curated a list of specific benefits for each department which can be found below.
