OS NGD Improvements
A high-level summary of data improvements implemented for the OS NGD.
June 2025 – OS NGD GSS code data improvements for OS NGD Building Features, OS NGD Land Features, OS NGD Transport Features, OS NGD Structure Features and OS NGD Water Features Collections
We are pleased to share a recent enhancement which improves how administrative boundary changes are reflected in the OS NGD ‘Features’ Collections.
We have enhanced the assignment and maintenance of Government Statistical Service (GSS) codes, which are used to accurately identify a wide range of UK geographical areas for statistical and administrative purposes. This improvement increases the precision and reliability of boundary representation within our datasets.
The feature types affected are:
Building Part v2.0
Land v3.0
Road Track Or Path v3.0
Structures v3.0
Water v3.0
This improvement will be incorporated in the June 2025 OS NGD Features Collections daily updates from 13/06/2025. As a result of this improvement work, customers receiving daily updates may receive larger than usual Change-Only Updates (COUs) and customers taking monthly supplies may receive larger than usual COUs in their July 2025 data package.
We anticipate similar levels of change in October 2025 and May 2026, aligned with updates to the OS NGD Boundaries Collection, as we continue to deliver the most up-to-date data possible.
June 2025 – OS NGD Building Feature Type data improvements for Basement Presence, Construction Material and Building Age
As a result of work in collaboration with Verisk, there will be improvements made in June 2025 to the Basement Presence, Construction Material and Building Age attribution in the OS NGD Building Feature Type. This work has involved improving the processing of energy performance certificate (EPC) data to increase accuracy; changes in some capture type and confidence levels in OS NGD data may be seen.
As a result of this improvement work, customers may receive larger than usual Change-Only Updates (COUs) if they take a daily supply of OS NGD Building Feature Type data schema versions 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 throughout June 2025 as the data flows through. Customers taking their supply monthly of this feature type may receive larger than usual COUs in their July 2025 data package. No action is required by customers. If you have any further questions, please get in touch.
May 2025 – Height data enhancement for OS NGD structures and OS NGD buildings data
At Ordnance Survey, we are modernising our data creation platforms. This includes the creation of additional height data for our building and structures datasets. A recent key improvement we've made as part of these efforts was to improve the accuracy and granularity of the height evidence date attribute, which details the date of capture for the imagery used to derive the height data.
Previously, height metadata was derived from large imagery flight blocks (exceeding 500km²), which sometimes required several flights over multiple days. This occasionally resulted in buildings and structures being assigned an imagery date different from the actual capture date.
Our new system allows the population of imagery date metadata to a more granular level, using the appropriate flight block. This ensures there is only one imagery date per building or structure feature, giving a more accurate representation of height evidence date for a specific feature. As a result, from 10 May 2025, some customers using Change-Only Updates (COUs) may notice that a small number of height evidence dates have changed to slightly older dates as we move to the new system. This change reflects more accurate data, not incorrect data.
This impacts some features in the following data schema versions:
Structures
Structure Feature Type v1.0
Structure Feature Type v2.0
Structure Feature Type v3.0
Buildings
Building Part Feature Type v1.0
Building Part Feature Type v2.0
Building Feature Type v4.0
Some customers may also see a larger than usual supply of COU if taking a daily supply of the above data schema versions as change begins to flow into the data from the start of our flying season, where data is captured using aerial imagery during the National Cyclic Revision (NCR) programme.
The .xlsx file below contains a complete list of features across all feature types that have a revised height evidence date that's earlier than previously stated.
Please see Data schema versioning for more information about versioning in the OS NGD.
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