The creation of a new national address database is now in its final stages, with the Birmingham City Council the last local authority to sign up. The project has seen the creation of the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) central information hub, overseen by the Improvement and Development Agency, Intelligent Addressing Ltd and local government address managers.

It is designed to provide exact locations of both private and corporate properties.

NLPG is already being used by some police forces and local authorities and this will increase in the future. A recent report estimated that £55m per annum could be saved by councils alone, with many others benefiting from a single address database that covers England, Scotland and Wales.

With the finished version containing 29m unique addresses, it would seem logical that substantial savings could also be achieved in other areas. Unfortunately there is no firm date for making it available to the commercial sector as yet, but negotiations are continuing.

‘Until recently there wasn’t a single definitive list of all the addresses for the country, meaning that many government and private services have not been sure if addresses from differing sources refer to the same or different properties,’ said Michael Nicholson, Intelligent Addressing md.

‘There has always been an understanding that the NLPG could not ultimately succeed unless every authority within England and Wales was signed up to the process. The success of the initiative is however there for all to see with new applications and processes coming to light every day.’