The trend towards making key national data open for all citizens and organisations to use within the UK is gaining momentum. As a part of this initiative, the Geospatial Commission has developed a new strategy, setting out a coordinated approach to unlock economic, social and environmental value from geospatial data. As a result, the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) has been made openly available and royalty free for use on Open Government Licence (OGL) terms.
FindMyAddress
In response to this, the central address hub GeoPlace has developed a rapid address search site, FindMyAddress, so anyone can find their UPRN. Powered by Aligned Assets’ cutting-edge address search technology, Symphony Search, it draws upon the most definitive set of addresses available, the OS AddressBase Premium dataset. The result is fast, accurate and resilient, running hundreds of address searches per second.
What is the UPRN?
All local authorities in the UK have a statutory obligation to manage and maintain their address register to British Standard BS7666. That means every unit of land and property is allocated a UPRN and geographic coordinates, ensuring there is one true record for each address. When address changes are made, they are done so against the UPRN, enabling accuracy of address maintenance, as well as providing access to the full history of an address.
Each local authority submits their address register (including the UPRN) to GeoPlace, who then collate the data into a national dataset AddressBase, the most accurate and comprehensive product being AddressBase Premium.
Why would I need the UPRN?
As an organisation managing address data, using addresses that are matched with the UPRN will ensure consistency and accuracy, therefore enabling efficiencies and minimising waste. This can easily be done by using AddressBase Premium data managed and shared by our specialist solutions to match, maintain and share address data. Alternatively, for address search and lookup, you can subscribe to the cloud-based Symphony Search address search solution that’s powering FindMyAddress.
As an individual, you may need your UPRN to source services or utilities, especially if you’ve moved into a newly built house.
How do I find my UPRN?
Historically, as an individual, you would have contacted your local council for your UPRN, but now you can source it for any address in GB within seconds at FindMyAddress.
The perfect collaboration
Nick Chapallaz, Managing Director of GeoPlace said,
Working on behalf of local authorities, we wanted to create a service that provides a central point for queries on open UPRNs to reduce the number of enquiries to councils and enable people to find official addresses, UPRNs and locations for every property in Great Britain. By working in collaboration with Aligned Assets and using their technology, FindMyAddress will become a key resource for accessing definitive information about addresses.
Aligned Assets’ Commercial Director, Dinesh Thanigasalam, commented,
We’re really proud to be involved in developing the website for GeoPlace, making national address data accessible to any member of the public. Using our 23 years of experience in this field, we’ve refined our technology already in use by a large number of public sector organisations in Great Britain, to help GeoPlace achieve the goal of making key national data available to all, both accurately and efficiently.
See for yourself how fast it is to get your UPRN.
Can our organisation use FindMyAddress?
The FindMyAddress website is for non-commercial use only and therefore limits the number of lookups per day. If you’re an organisation wanting to utilise the search engine behind FindMyAddress, Symphony Search, or if you’re keen to match and cleanse your data against AddressBase Premium using the UPRNs as the address anchor, then drop us a line.
