Hartley Wintney, UK, December 8th, 2010 - Bath & North East Somerset Council received a highly commended citation in the 2010 Association of Geographic Information Awards held on the 25th of November in London. The award, in the Local Public Services category, recognises the Council’s achievement in providing an affordable web based mapping application, ‘Parish Online’, to Parish Councils throughout Bath & North East Somerset.

The deployment of ‘Parish Online’ in Bath & North East Somerset is a fine example of the value of partnership working between the private and public sectors, local communities and higher education. It demonstrates that it is possible to provide a sophisticated mapping solution that is both affordable and easy to use.

The Parishes in Bath & North East Somerset now have a tool to help them manage their everyday business and can communicate more efficiently with the Local Authority, utility companies and the emergency services. The Council benefits from no longer having to issue paper maps and from significant savings in officer time. The project was energised by 2nd year students from the Bath Spa University GIS Course, who ran all the promotional events, to bring the Parishes on board and carried out all the training benefitting in turn from their involvement with Geographic Information professionals from both the public and the private sectors.

Parish Online is an innovative web mapping application with functionality and tools targeted at typical Parish Council activities using a mix of proprietary and Open Source software. Getmapping provide a streaming raster feed into Parish Online and also manage all datasets available including Ordnance Survey MasterMap, historic mapping, and Getmapping high resolution aerial photography. Parish Online also provides access to the National Land and Property Gazetteer, providing search facilities unparalleled for an application of this type.

Martin Laker, from the GIS Team at Bath & North East Somerset Council said, “We are delighted that the efforts of so many people who came together in the spirit of localism and partnership have been recognised by this award. We have been able to forge mutually beneficial relationships not only with commercial partners but also with the future generation of Geographic Information professionals, whilst providing local Parishes with an excellent tool to enable them to fully grasp the Big Society agenda.”