OS NGD News
This section contains pages relating to new data enhancements and service updates released for the OS NGD, the change log, improvements, planned future data enhancements and recent announcements.
📣 Recent announcements
2026 announcements
🏞️ July 2026 – OS NGD access enhancement
A new 'Understanding land use in the OS NGD' guide has been added to the site; this guide contains specific advice on how to make the most of OS NGD Land Use data and includes the following topics:
How OS represents human activity or the economic function of an area or piece of land
How Land Use Tier A and Tier B classifications are assigned and maintained
How Sites relate spatially to surrounding features
How address records are matched and summarised
How Site Description values map across to National Land Use Database (NLUD) values
🧑🍳 June 2026 – OS NGD access enhancement
Two more OS recommended recipe guides have been published on the site:
Identifying higher-risk buildings recipe guide – The guide contains detailed step-by-step instructions outlining how you can create a recipe in OS Select+Build to identify higher-risk buildings. It provides a geospatial toolkit that will help you use OS NGD data to identify if a building in occupation in Great Britain is classified as higher-risk by the Building Safety Act 2022 and the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023.
Safer routes to schools recipe guide – The guide provides a geospatial toolkit for helping you calculate safer routes to schools across Great Britain; its step-by-step instructions outline how to select relevant pieces of addressing, routing and transport network data from the OS NGD and weave them into a recipe in OS Select+Build.
👩🍳 April 2026 – OS NGD access enhancement
The first OS recommended recipe guide was published on the site: Greenspace recipe guide. This guide provides a geospatial toolkit to help you understand green spaces across Great Britain; the step-by-step instructions outline how to select relevant pieces of topographic data from the OS NGD and weave them into a greenspace recipe in OS Select+Build.
The suggested recipe will help support research, management, planning, auditing and policy for greenspace use cases.
We expect to add further OS recommended recipe guides over time.
🎉 Spring 2026 – OS NGD data enhancements releases now live
The Spring 2026 data enhancements releases for the OS NGD are now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see the 'What's New?' page.
2025 announcements
OS NGD data enhancements releases now live
The Autumn 2025 data enhancements releases for the OS NGD are now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see the 'What's New?' page.
Improvements to data in the OS Building Features, OS Land Features, OS Land Use Features, OS Structure Features and OS Water Features Collections
We are making numerous improvements to data in the OS Building Features, OS Land Features, OS Land Use Features, OS Structures Features and OS Water Features Collections in July 2025; to find out information about what these improvements include, please see the OS NGD Improvements page.
Edit a recipe functionality added to OS Select+Build
You can now edit a recipe in OS Select+Build to add or remove themes / feature types, or change attribute filtering or data schema versions. Please see 'How do I edit a recipe?' on the Downloading with OS Select+Build page for more details.
OS NGD GSS code data improvements for OS Building Features, OS Structure Features, OS Land Features, OS Transport Features and OS NGD Water 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. To find out more information about what these improvements include, please see the OS NGD Improvements page.
Building Feature Type data improvements for Basement Presence, Construction Material and Number of Floors
As a result of work in collaboration with Verisk, there will be improvements made in June 2025 to the Basement Presence, Construction Material and Number of Floors attribution in the Building Feature Type. To find out more information about what these improvements include, please see the OS NGD Improvements page.
Height data enhancement for OS NGD Structures Theme and OS NGD Buildings Theme data
A new enhancement to the way OS NGD Structures Theme and OS NGD Buildings Theme data is created is now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see the OS NGD Improvements page.
OS NGD enhancements release now live
The March 2025 enhancements release for the OS NGD is now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see the 'What's New' page.
2024 announcements
OS NGD Address Christmas shutdown
There will be no daily updates of OS NGD Address over the Christmas shutdown period (24/12/2024–01/01/2025). Updates will resume as normal on 02 January 2025.
OS NGD Data Viewer now available
We've added links to the new OS NGD Data Viewer to this site (under the 'Using OS NGD Data' section and in the OS NGD Sample Data Information page). The viewer lets you visualise product sample data online for three areas (Exeter, Newport and Inverness).
Sample data for most OS NGD feature types are available. The sample data always use the latest data schema version available for each feature type.
OS NGD enhancements release now live
The September 2024 enhancements release for the OS NGD is now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see the 'What's New?' page.
Improvement to UPRNs in the Site Feature Type, OS NGD Land Use Theme
Improvement details
The Site Feature Type within the OS NGD Land Use Theme includes an attribute that references the primary Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) for the site extent. Previously, the Primary UPRN attribute was only populated when there was a single address within the site extent. The improvement introduces new logic to determine the population of this attribute with the appropriate primary UPRN when there is more than one UPRN within a site extent.
Approximately 1.4 million sites are being improved as a result of this improvement.
The improvement will be available to customers automatically through the OS NGD access services of OS Select+Build and OS NGD API – Features.
Impact to customers
Customers do not need to take any direct action as a result of this improvement. On 19 August 2024, some customers may have experienced a slight delay in receiving their daily OS Select+Build orders or on any new orders placed that day.
Customers with an existing order that includes the Site Feature Type may have noticed an increase in the size of their change-only update (COU) file on 19 August 2024 or might notice an increase in the size of their next monthly update on 01 September 2024, as approximately 1.4 million sites are being improved.
All of the OS NGD access services (OS Select+Build and the OS NGD APIs) will remain available to customers with no disruption to service availability.
OS NGD Buildings Theme COU pause
There is planned maintenance scheduled for the OS NGD Buildings Theme from Saturday 20 July 2024 to Monday 22 July 2024 to run an upgrade to one of our background systems which underpins the OS NGD. This maintenance is needed to enhance the data which will be made available in the OS NGD Buildings Theme in September 2024.
During the planned maintenance period, the OS NGD Buildings Theme will not have any updates available and the daily Change-Only Update (COU) files received will be empty. In addition, the data within OS Select+Build and OS NGD API – Features will not be updated daily for the OS NGD Buildings Theme.
At the end of the maintenance period, all the changes will be made available and any daily COU files are likely to be larger than normal.
Any customers receiving monthly COU files will not be affected.
OS NGD Features Collections bug fixes
From 07 June to 08 June 2024, bug fixes are being applied to 1.6 million features across the OS NGD Features Collections, as part of our ongoing efforts to provide better data.
These improvements include fixes to Associated Structure, Land Use Tier A and Land Use Tier B attribute values.
Planned maintenance on six OS NGD themes
Background system maintenance for the OS NGD is required to deliver the enhancements scheduled for September 2024. The planned maintenance period will be from Sunday 16 June through to Saturday 29 June, at the latest.
Throughout the maintenance period, all the OS NGD access services (OS Select+Build and the OS NGD APIs) will remain available to customers with no disruption to the service availability. The data within these services will not be updated daily with surveyed change for the following affected OS NGD collections:
OS Building Features
OS Land Features
OS Land Use Features
OS Structure Features
OS Transport Features
OS Water Features
Any daily Change-Only Update (COU) files for the other OS NGD collections will be unaffected during the maintenance period.
Customers will continue to be able to access all daily COU orders during the maintenance period and any new orders. During the maintenance period, any COU files for the above affected OS NGD collections will continue to be delivered and will be smaller than normal or empty. At the end of the maintenance period, all the surveyed changes for the affected OS NGD collections will be made available, and any daily COU files are likely to be larger than normal.
Any customers who receive monthly COU files will not be affected.
OS NGD Address Theme
The fix for the known data issue relating to the description of Parish and Community Government Statistical Services (GSS) codes as Ward GSS codes and vice versa will be rolled out to 4 million features (UPRNs) a day alongside the usual daily updates starting from 17 May 2024 until 27 May 2024.
This will result in larger daily Change-Only Update (COU) files. On 01 June 2024, the OS NGD Address Theme monthly COU file will be larger than a Full Supply file as all features will have a delete record and an update record.
OS NGD enhancements release now live
The March 2024 enhancements release for the OS NGD is now live. To find out more information about what these enhancements include, please see our 'What's New?' page.
What's next?
Last updated
Was this helpful?