In 1988 the Audit Commission for Local Authorities in England and Wales published a report on local authority property management. This led eventually to the requirement, under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, for local authorities to undertake asset valuations.
Software houses have not been slow to respond to the commercial possibilities this legislation, although in some cases this appears to have involved no more than renaming existing property-management systems. Other companies, in contrast, have developed specific applications, such as GGP Systems of Croydon.
GGP has been working on an automated mapping system to help local councils maintain asset records. In particular, they have developed an interface for specialist land-terrier and asset-register systems, so that the system can be linked to popular databases such as dBase, DataEase, Access and Dataflex.
Council assets can now be displayed as map “overlays” on OS digital maps. This eliminates the need for paper-based map records, and provides users with benefits such as quick map up dating and production, as well as automated area calculations.
Displays of different land and property types can be selected from the database and, when on screen, data can be retrieved by simply selecting points or areas on the map display.
GGP has also brought out a special feature to interconnect other geographic data, such as planning constraints and enumeration districts. The user will thus be able to retrieve, through one simple command, all data affecting a specific area of land or property.
Further information from Robert Peel or Tim Maxwell, GGP Systems, 12 Vincent Road, Croydon, CR0 6ED (081-656 8562).
