Any plans to implement "Improved Regions" for UK?

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 19:20:30 +0000

I note from http://project-gc.com/Home/CountrySupport that Improved Regions is not implemented for UK. However there exists Open Source boundary data files from the UK's Ordnanace Survey that provides this information royalty free. I've spent a while investigating these polygon files and I'm confident that they meet the criteria used elsewhere. ie: that the boundaries match the existing region boundaries used at Groundspeak.com.

You can see a map of the Groundspeak boundaries on their wiki at https://wiki.groundspeak.com/download/attachments/11173980/ukfullmap.jpg?version=1&modificationDate=1405415769333&api=v2

The Ordnance Survey's Open Data boundary files are available from https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html - scroll down to look for the Boundary-Line product. You can interactively compare these boundaries with the Groundspeak boundaries at https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendata/viewer/index.html and select the boundary layer's tab, then select the first radio button "County, Unitary Authority and Metropolitan" to select which boundaries to show. (Make sure you aren't too zoomed out or the boundaries won't show).

Comparing the Google Earth boundaries file from Groundspeak to the boundary file from Ordnanace survey there appears to be an almost perfect match - certainly as good as there is for most other countries.

Thus as far as I can see there is no practical obstacle to implementing this free boundary data file.

This has many advantages for project-gc -

1) Its an official dataset that matches Groundpseak's boundraries.

2) It retains the majority of counties in place already - primary exception being Scotland where project-gc inexplicably uses boundaries that only ever existed for a brief 21 year period in the late 20th century. Moving to actual current boundaries for Scotland rather than older flash in the pan boundaries that don't mean anything to anyone would be a big step forward.

3) It also means that as any boundaries shift in future you are basing your data on an official source that would be quickly updated.

4) It's entirely royalty free boundary files which may be freely used on a commercial site such as project-gc without requiring negotiations or explicit consent.

Given all these advantages is there any timescale for being able to import these boundaries so we in the UK and particularly those of us in Scotland can benefit from accurate meaningful boundaries?

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Any plans to implement "Improved Regions" for UK?