Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, probably the fastest growing and most go-ahead of the ten districts that make up Greater Manchester, has just launched a two-year programme to ensure they have one of the most up-to-date and comprehensive address databases in the country.

"At the moment we're probably around 80-85 percent accurate. Our aim is to be 100 per cent accurate," says Mark Murray, their Senior GIS Officer and member of Steve Rampley's progressive Survey, Cartography & GIS (SCG) section.

"The National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) will enable us to bring everything together, standardise and co-ordinate all our address and GIS data and provide a single, centralised, definitive address database for the benefit of the whole Council."

Such a single, centralised, definitive address database would, in addition to meeting the requirements of the NLPG, also help the Council to cut administrative and processing costs, eliminate mistakes, reduce postal and associated costs and ultimately boost Council revenue.

"Proper, correct address databases are vitally important. Unfortunately not everyone sees the value and the benefit they can offer," he adds.

Stockport, which has over 300,000 population and, at the last count, 145,479 separate properties, had a single, centralised address database many years ago. But as the Council grew and expanded and local government was re-organised the system failed to keep up.

Today, like most local authorities, it has four main address databases:

Says Mark Murray, "The lists are good. They are as up-to-date as they can be. Inevitably there are variations maybe up to 10,000 properties. But the issue has been recognised. We are in the process of providing the solution."

Providing the solution is Hopewiser address management technology.

Says James Carr, Stockport's GIS Officer, "Already we've taken the first steps to creating our centralised, definitive database."

"We are using AtlasBatch and AtlasDedupe. AtlasBatch is automatically cleaning all the data we have and every quarter will keep us up-to-date with all the PAF changes."

"AtlasDedupe is helping us merge our different files and, of course, eliminate all the duplications based on name, address and other information we hold."

"We've come across the usual spelling mistakes and the usual misinterpretation of address styles. We've also discovered problems with flats and references to flats."

"The problem will now be to begin investigating the anomalies. Council tax says one thing. Electoral register says something else. Planning something else again. Some of these will be dealt with internally. Others may require map references and even site visits. It can be a long process."

Says Mark Murray, "Hopewiser understand exactly what we're doing. They know the local government environment and the special needs and requirements of local government."

Adds James Carr, "Their software is easy to install, easy to understand and easy to operate. Where we've had problems, they're very good. They pop in straightaway. Everything is sorted out very quickly. Other software houses we've found are not so helpful, not so organised. In fact, working together we've been able to come up with a special batching system to overcome one particular problem we had."

The last word is from Mark Murray.

"Hopewiser have come up with the goods. They are solving our problems and helping us meet our objectives."