Comments on the NZGB Gazetter Spreadsheets
I have been involved with a couple of other people over the past few months in asking some questions, and providing feedback on, the NZ Geographic Board (NZGB) Gazetteer spreadsheets. Wendy Shaw, Secretary of the NZ Geographic Board provided some very detailed comments and feedback on this, and with her permission, I have a copy of her email here for wider sharing.
Feedback on the ‘Gazetteer’ spreadsheets recently published on the web by LINZ is gratefully received. There will be on-going corrections to get the content as correct as possible in the coming few weeks and months. LINZ is currently investigating how it might potentially convert these spreadsheets to a more user friendly and effective database platform, that enables connections and relationships, as required. Some provision would also need to be considered for capturing spatial extent. LINZ’s business analysts are currently working on this and have been provided with relevant comments, as suggested.
With the Gazetteer spreadsheets, consideration will be taken on how best to annotate changes and may introduce a unique ID for the next publication of the spreadsheets on the LINZ website www.linz.govt.nz
As to the accuracy of coordinates, they are generally the coordinate or grid reference listed in the New Zealand Gazette that made the name official. There may be a need to clarify this point for users. The accuracy could be improved, and has been generalised for 1:50,000 topo mapping. To improve the accuracy for all official names to +/-5-10m for GPS users would not be possible.
Localities and suburbs that are currently being maintained by the New Zealand Fire Service are not publicly available. The review of the New Zealand Geographic Board Act looked at locality and suburb names, and intended to devolve the naming to Territorial Authorities, leaving the Board with a concurrence role. However, this did not eventuate in the 2008 Act, because it was identified that future ‘integrated address legislation’ would cover this off and that an amendment to the Act 2008 could be made in the future. For now the Board continues to have a role in assigning, altering, approving or discontinuing locality and suburb names – see item 16.27 on page 35 of the Board’s Frameworks document at http://www.linz.govt.nz/docs/placenames/nz-geographicbd/frameworks-nzgb-200809-ver2.pdf .
To recognise the importance of locality and suburb naming and the need to engage more fully with Territorial Authorities and the community, the Board’s membership will now include a person nominated from Local Government New Zealand. Also, a number of tasks and commitments have been identified, specifically relating to locality and suburb naming:
- Research and collation of existing recorded suburb and locality names and supporting information in electronic form from existing sources.
- Development of Code of Practice for official naming of Suburbs and Localities.
- Secretariat administration to confirm proposed name concurrence with Code of Practice.
- Gazette/newspaper advertising ongoing costs after initial naming.
Locality and suburb naming will be dealt with more fully by the Board in the near future.
For any queries, please contact Wendy Shaw, Secretary of the Board – wshaw@linz.govt.nz
Regards,
Wendy