New website Plots UK’s 60,000 Phone Masts

I received this press release for new website that highlights an important example of re-use of public data disclosed under the EIRs. Last September the ICO served a Decision Notice under the Environmental Information Regulations ordering Ofcom to provide all data on mobile phone base stations held within its Sitefinder database. Ononemap has added the data to a map using the grid coordinates .

The the phone mast data on the website is reproduced with the following copyright statement:

© Ofcom. Information reproduced accurately and in context from the Mobile Phone Base Station Database and with adherence to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. OnOneMap displays the mast information as per the aforementioned database as of December 2006.

The press release

OnOneMap Plots UK’s 60,000 Phone Masts
Public can now access information about phone masts in their area.

London, 19th February 2007 – OnOneMap, the company that plots useful information on one map at www.ononemap.com, today switches on a new feature enabling users to see phone mast locations. Users can opt to plot icons representing the location of actual phone masts by searching for any location in the United Kingdom and ticking the phone masts tick box in “Map options”.

Data for nearly 60,000 mobile telephony, railway and emergency services masts is available. Some basic information about each mast is available by clicking on the mast icon.

“OnOneMap believes wholeheartedly in the provision of information to the public in a highly usable and accessible manner. We have already made it possible to search for properties for sale, sold properties, secondary schools and supermarkets in one place and we plan to make further data sets available throughout 2007” says Philip Sheldrake, co-founder and Managing Director, OnOneMap.

I've looked at the site and from a functionality point of view is impressive. The site use the google maps open source code to create the map on which the data is overlaid.