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Constructing a land-use data set from public domain information in England

Local authorities, and in particular local planning authorities, have specific duties that require the collection and monitoring of data on land use. Primary and secondary legislation has imposed the preparation of plans and strategies, the reviewing and assessing of land-use components, the responsibility for setting targets, and finally the duty to maintain specific land-type registers. For example, local planning authorities are required to return information to central government on previously developed land and they are required to prepare development plans, urban capacity studies, housing needs assessments and housing land availability studies, community strategies, local transport plans, affordable housing, and various conservation, preservation and listing duties, all of which require information on land use. Coordination of the collection of land-use data across nearly 400 local authorities in England is a substantial task. Data sets which are created to a common and rigorous standard at the national level, often for totally different purposes, may provide a better platform for the assembly of land-use data at the national level, and urban land use in particular. Furthermore, advances in geographical information system (GIS) technology and improvements in the geographical referencing of land and property information mean that these data sets are capable of being mapped and therefore provide a new perspective on land use in urban areas. This paper reports on a research project studying how existing and publicly accessible data sets can be combined to produce land-use information for an urban area. It provides a summary of the following: land-use database initiatives in England; publicly available data sets that include land-use information; standards and systems used to classify land use; and the British Standard for defining and referencing individual units of land and property. The paper then explains how a method for combining data sets was tested in part of the city of Bristol in the South West of England.