I have a couple of questions about UPRNs.
In the first case the house had been confused with its neighbour and I deleted the UPRN because I wasn’t sure how to check it. How can I check UPRNs?
In the second case the house has been demolished and is now a building site. Is the UPRN still meaningful?
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In the first case, the least painful way would be to use GB Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRN) | Rob's OSM Stuff . Although the house number was incorrect, as far as I can tell, UPRN 100022341642 was correct for that property. The import found only one UPRN in the containing Land Registry INSPIRE polygon, and it was within the building polygon.
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I tend to change cases like this to “not:ref:GB:uprn”, and possibly add a note, so that the old UPRN doesn’t get added back accidentally.
There could be potentially some value to systematically recording these type of previous UPRNs to show they are a previous building (rather than just an incorrect UPRN), but I suspect the value would be minimal.
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When we first stated using UPRN’s we were advised that a UPRN often relates to a property - a plot of land which may have a building on it. IF the building is demolished then the plot of land retains the UPRN.
This an occasion where the ‘plot’ tag may be appropriate - to retain the UPRN
UPRN’s relate to any addressable property - discrete land with a house, telephone box, Post Box, each flat within a bock of flats . . . .. .
In this case the plot of land retains the UPRN and may be identified using the plot tag attached to the property extent - using the Cadastral parcels overlay and an aerial photo to identify the extent of the plot.
The edge case of a block of flats being demolished would I believe require the deletion of the UPRN for each flat and identifying a UPRN for the remaining plot of land.
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This is really interesting - a bit of knowledge about how these are used in practice is really helpful.
From what I have seen, when a building in a single plot of land is demolished and rebuilt, the new building has been assigned a new UPRN. It may be that I have only come across this arrangement as keeping the previous UPRN would be harder to spot.
Do you know if there is any “official” guidance that we can refer to about how this all works?
The government page is a good starter - Identifying property and street information - GOV.UK
I’ve scanned through the British Standard referenced there and have used the tolls in their usage paragraph.
When mapping I’ve used the Cadastral overlay and Rob Whittaker’s UPRN page GB Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRN) | Rob's OSM Stuff . When using the UPRN’s i’ve noticed multiple UPRN’s on properties I know to be flats as described in the GOV.UK page. I’ve also noted some UPRN’s in the middle of what I know to be a field - and which are the location of a pond. Comments in those official sources are made that non-addressable objects can have UPRN’s. Local Authorities are responsible for defining an address and assigning a UPRN, I suspect other agencies may also allocate UPRN’s such as Royal Mail.
I’ve looked up a nearby UPRN which is reported by FindMy Address as
| UPRN: 10070376192 |
|---|
| Play Area |
| Grey Heights View |
| Chorley |
| PR6 0TN |
and the Authority is
| Address Authority | |
|---|---|
| Chorley Borough Council | |
| County Authority | |
| Lancashire County Council |
I am convinced by my own observations that there are many more data items associated with a UPRN and we would need a data schema to understand it - unfortunately I have not been able to find such a definitive document.
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UPRN as part of OS Address Base AddressBase Premium structure | OS Download Products' Documentation
It seems that a UPRN can be generated after planning approval, so plenty of scope for a value to be never used if building never takes place. I wonder if a new planning application for the same site generates a further value. I expect yes.
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Thanks.
From that reference the BLPU has the states of the UPRN
Value Description
1 under construction
2 In use
3 Unoccupied /vacant/derelict
4 No longer existing
6 Planning permission granted