Abstract
Much valuable public sector geographic data continues to be virtually inaccessible both within government as a whole and to the private sector. However progress is being made, and in particular in meeting a key policy need for statistics through GIS.
Systematic data collection on the UK's town centres has not been undertaken for almost 30 years, yet they have witnessed dramatic change and the potential impacts of further change need to be assessed. Inter-departmental data sharing, ownership and partnership and the involvement of users, are at the forefront of a project which is using innovative GIS approaches to fill the void in statistics.
A system has been developed that conceptually models areas of town centre activity, using fine scale data and produces an index which can be converted into a continuous spatial measure. Using this measure, Central Statistical Areas can be identified for which consistent statistics such as employment, retail sales turnover and floorspace can be derived. This approach has proven to work even in London with its many separate centres. Local authorities are integrated in the approach by encouraging them to undertake local data and output verification via interactive GIS internet applications.
The project is intended to be implemented across the country, so that for every town centre, reliable statistics will be available.