The Walls of Jericho

Published : 20 November 2009

The Prime Minister's potentially historic announcement this week on the freeing up of mapping data signifies a very early win in the Making Public Data Public initiative headed by Tim Berners Lee and his trusty cohort Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

With hardly even the seventh blast from the trumpet of the founder of the internet , years of entrenched resistance to opening up mapping data to industry and the public would seem to have fallen away. And perhaps it will indeed come to pass.

Ordnance Survey's reaction however, while superficially welcoming, cautions: "...The detail of this is still being worked through and a formal consultation period will begin in December to look at how these changes will be implemented".  Another consultation? After the one announced in April, and additional to the ones currently being carried out?

One senses unfinished business - see Ordnance Survey - the dreary steeples - and real decisions yet to be made on issues which though intrinsically complex and difficult must now surely be grasped.  Defining which core reference geographies are essential for the proper provision of public services ;  creating a proper transparency between the public task of Ordnance Survey and its commercial activities. And, not least for Ordnance Survey's sake, creating a sustainable funding model which doesn't put it in the fluctuating grant-in-aid situation which contributed to its manifestation as a Trading Fund in the first place.

So not yet a land of milk and honey - but the enunciation of principle and high policy from Downing Street must now surely presage resolution of this long running sore. And in times to come, we may yet find, as archaeologists reported last week, that there were no walls at ancient Jericho -  just evidence of peaceful and harmonious agriculture.

And it did indeed come to pass (perhaps!).