Bassetlaw: Council launches open data website

Bassetlaw Council has launched an Open Data website to deliver transparency for residents and to help drive choice and improvements in the services it provides.
Steve Brown shows Sylvia May the use of the new website on a tabletSteve Brown shows Sylvia May the use of the new website on a tablet
Steve Brown shows Sylvia May the use of the new website on a tablet

The new site, www.bassetlaw.gov.uk/opendata, responds to the Government’s Open Data agenda and allows citizens easy access to information, provides commercial information for entrepeneurs and businesses and gives the academic sector access to live data for research and innovation.

Coun Sylvia May, cabinet member for Support Services at Bassetlaw District Council, said: “The data we collect should be public property for anybody to use.”

“As a council we will publish the data that people need to understand who we are, what we spend and what we achieve.”

“Data is the 21st century’s new raw material and I hope that by making ours freely available and easily accessible, residents can be empowered and academics and businesses can inspire innovation and enterprise.”

“We are in the top five in the country for being this far advanced.”

People can access this information who ever and where ever they are. It is accessible in different forms for computers, mobile phones and IPads.”

Andrew Brammall, strategic IT manager at Bassetlaw Council. said: “This is the first release of the Open Data site and as it develops we will be uploading many more datasets to the site.”

“What we would love to see is feedback from residents, businesses and the data community telling us what they would like to see published and helping us to continuously develop the site.”

The site currently has 56 datasets including planning applications, council tax bands and district councillors. Feedback and requests for publication of new data sets can be made at www.bassetlaw.gov.uk/feedback.