How Ordnance Survey location data can support the new national Land Use Framework
Users of the new framework will need access to trusted and authoritative location data as a fundamental tool to facilitate their decision-making around land, and how land use and land cover change are monitored over time.
Ordnance Survey (OS), as the country’s national mapping service, is one of the largest holders of spatial data on land use and provides up to 20,000 updates to its database every day. The OS National Geographic Database (OS NGD) Features Collection includes Land, Building, Land Use, Structure, Transport, and Water and contains land information data which can also be seen in the OS MasterMap Topography, Sites and Greenspace Layer products. The data in the OS NGD has been structured to be more analytical and consistent across the six OS NGD feature collections, allowing easier selection of the required features and delivering greater value to users. OS is also developing future datasets to support land development and biodiversity net gain.
OS has a history of contributing to land use data and land cover standards over several years. These datasets are published with metadata that complies with the UKGEMINI metadata standard. The adoption of common standards contributes to data sources used in the management of land being more findable, accessible, interoperable and reuseable.
OS data is easily accessible through the OS Data Hub, which currently supports around 40,000 individuals and organisations across the public and private sectors. It provides access to OS data through a variety of licensing terms including open data and through a suite of standardised geospatial APIs and data downloads which can be integrated into users’ apps and solutions. OS is constantly looking to provide a greater and richer variety of data to customers and recently included third party datasets from the British Geological Survey – the leading provider of the UK’s scientific earth data - which has extended the offering to OS customers significantly.
OS Land Use data is widely used by central and local government bodies and agencies such as the Environment Agency and Rural Payments Agency. One local government example is the Greater Manchester Ecology Unit, which has been leading the mapping work for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy. The unit found that the best way of mapping and identifying current land use and land cover was by using the OS NGD products, selecting ‘recipes’ or layers of data mapping as they need. A key benefit was the provision of a consistent hierarchical classification for land use and land cover across the OS NGD features that makes selection and identification of areas of interest and the calculation of statistics much simpler than previously.
"Using OS data has saved the project so much time – it really has been a game-changer. The various feature sets have enabled us to estimate land use percentages so we can see how much is made up of agriculture, buildings or residential gardens and driveways. OS data is also helping us identify which groups of stakeholders and land managers have the most influence and who we need to be engaged with to assist with that nature recovery. I couldn’t have done this without NGD data. It has saved me – and the ecologists we would have needed out on the ground – so much time."
Through its Green Infrastructure Framework, Natural England has been working with local authorities to increase the amount of green (vegetated land in an urban area) or blue (outdoor environments that prominently feature water and are accessible) space to 40% in urban residential areas and identify where it is needed most. Nottingham City Council used the OS MasterMap (OSMM) Greenspace Layer with its own existing information to find out that already 37% of their built-up areas were already either green or blue space. It was then able to build up an even more detailed picture using OSMM Topography data by harnessing the value of shared identifiers between products. This analysis can now be made even easier by the integration of land use and land cover in OS NGD. With an accurate lie of the land, including how areas with higher levels of deprivation intersect with greenspace coverage, the council could then see which areas could be enhanced, and develop its greenspace strategy, with a clear benchmark for measuring progress.
Katie Morgan, Senior GIS Data Analyst for Nottingham City Council said:
"OS Greenspace’s comprehensive land coverage is great for high-level projects like this, particularly as it maps the small areas of greenspace that contribute to the total. Because it’s updated regularly by OS to reflect changes on the ground, it's a reliable and accessible product for quick analysis. We’re already exploring how we can use it on other projects."
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Land Use Change Statistics (LUCS) show how land use is changing in England. These official statistics contain information for the total number of new residential addresses and measures the type of land new houses are built. OS data is used to identify MHCLG's 28 LUCS classifications; these classifications are used to identify the proportion of change for each type of land use.
In May 2023, the Geospatial Commission (now part of the Government Digital Service) published the findings of the National Land Data Programme (NLDP). As part of this, OS designed a logical data model to facilitate the harmonisation of how land data is described across the UK to support strategic land use options appraisal. Findings and recommendations from NLDP as a whole are set out in the Finding Common Ground report.
More recently, OS has been supporting the Government Digital Service (GDS) with work to improve the findability, accessibility, use and interoperability of spatial data to inform evidence-based decisions about how the UK’s land can be more effectively used.
John Kimmance, Chief Customer Officer at OS, said:
“No-one knows the lay of the land better than OS. Our customers have a huge amount of trust in the authoritative data we provide, which is updated up to 20,000 times daily. We already work incredibly closely with so many public sector customers to provide location data relating to land use in the real world – represented by OS Features. They can access nearly 26 million land use sites which allow them to develop insights, in turn supporting better decision-making. Crucially, our data can now be used to support the guidelines laid out in the new framework.”
OS data is free to public sector customers under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA). This is a contract between the GDS, managed on behalf of the UK Government, and OS for the provision of geospatial data and services to the emergency services and wider public sector organisations. OS data is also available to commercial partners under licensing agreements.
If you would like to contact OS, please email psga@os.uk.
Get started with OS data
With over 20,000 updates to our databases every day, access a comprehensive and up-to-date set of authoritative data through the OS Data Hub
Already have an account? Sign in

Our highly accurate geospatial data and printed maps help individuals, governments and companies to understand the world, both in Britain and overseas.