Landmark Nederland helps secure PSI availability

08 May 2009, 8:31am

7 May 2009 - The country’s leading supplier of land and property search information, Landmark Nederland, has taken a significant step forward in helping to make public sector information more accessible to both public and commercial users following a three year campaign.

Landmark is the first organisation in The Netherlands to have brought together a national dataset of environmental risks such as contaminated land from a range of sources including Dutch council records. This data is used to create a portfolio of products including Milieuscan environmental reports for home buyers, which sell via estate agency brokers.

The Milieuscan reports were launched in 2006 with the co-operation of national and local authorities providing supporting data for environmental search purposes. However, the City of Amsterdam sought substantial compensation for supplying the data and also wanted to limit its reuse, arguing a substantial investment had been made in compiling the original dataset. However, after three years of legal hearings, the Dutch Raad van State, the highest Administrative Court in the Netherlands, ruled that the City of Amsterdam does not bear the risk of investment in the database as this has to be provided and funded anyway as part of the City's public task. Consequently, the City is not entitled to attach excessive financial conditions and limitations to the reuse of the data by Landmark.

Managing Director of Landmark Nederland, Geoff Offen, said: “This decision represents a significant step forward on the issue of public sector data re-use in The Netherlands and also has ramifications across Europe. Our long-running campaign to unlock the value in public data on fair terms has been supported by the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) in the Netherlands, as well as the European Commission which is actively promoting good practice from public sector information holders across Europe in making their information more readily accessible at marginal cost”.

“We are now investing further in our portfolio of industry and consumer products and expanding our services across both The Netherlands and Germany. We will continue to work closely with local authorities in all our areas of operation to ensure information on crucial issues such as pollution and other environmental hazards is made more accessible to both the public and the industry.”

Landmark’s range of environmental, planning and neighbourhood information reports are endorsed by the real estate organisations NVM and LMV and can be viewed at the link below. The reports can be obtained from all leading estate agents.

Landmark Nederland

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