November 03, 2011 -- GeoPlace LLP has today announced the winners of the 2011 National Gazetteers Exemplar Awards. The awards recognise the outstanding achievements of English and Welsh local authorities, local partnerships, police forces and fire and rescue services, in the creation, maintenance and utilisation of the National Gazetteers.

The 2011 Exemplar Awards will be presented today at the ‘Everything Happens Somewhere’ conference, which is taking place at Albert Hall in Nottingham.  Both the awards and the conference aim to share, reward and celebrate best practice which brings service improvements and efficiencies through the effective management of address and street information. 

GeoPlace is a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey.  GeoPlace’s role is to create and maintain national databases of address and street data sourced from local authorities in England and Wales, brought together with Ordnance Survey data.  These national databases provide definitive spatial address and street data as an enabler for public sector improvement and wider application in other sectors. 

The 2011 Exemplar Award categories and winners are as follows.

Citizen Award Winner: Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service. The Citizen Award is intended to reward projects where benefits have been delivered to citizens or businesses using the National Gazetteers.

Financial Award Winner: Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council.  This award intends to capture projects which can demonstrate real financial savings through the use of the National Gazetteers.

Green Award Winner: Northumberland County Council.  This award aims to capture the range of examples where the National Gazetteers have been used for greener outcomes. Projects should have either reduced environmental impact or increased greener outcomes.

Integration Award Winner: Bristol City Council, South Gloucestershire Council, Bath and North East Somerset Council, North Somerset District Council, Police, Fire & Ambulance Emergency Services, Primary Care Trusts and the NHS in the greater Bristol Area. This award seeks to recognise those who are able to show how the National Gazetteers are linked to all other council services, or local partnerships and the benefits of these linkages.

Technology Award Winner: West Midland Fire & Rescue Service. This award is looking for innovative examples of the application of technology using the National Gazetteers. This category could include projects using open source software; creating mash ups or other technological solutions.

Naming Award Winner: Colchester Borough Council. This award is given to the candidate who the judges feel has the most innovative example of street naming which is relevant both to local history and geographical context.

The winners will be documented into a case studies booklet that will be made available via the GeoPlace website.

Contacts:

Gayle Gander, Head of Marketing, GeoPlace, +44(0)207 747 3500, E-mail: Email Contact, www.geoplace.co.uk