Case Study: Forestry Commission achieves at least £50,000 annual savings with Ordnance Survey data products

Forestry Commission - Customer Case Study

Forestry Commission faced a costly, time-consuming process of fulfilling ad hoc data requests (about 30 minutes each) and needed a scalable, INSPIRE-compliant way to publish National Forest Inventory and other datasets. With geographic context and licensing support from Ordnance Survey (via PSMA/OSMA and products such as OS MasterMap Topography Layer, OS VectorMap Local and 1:25 000 Scale Colour Raster), the customer sought a more efficient delivery model.

Using Ordnance Survey data and licences, the Forestry Commission created a product-based data download portal (hosted in the cloud and linked from forestry.gov.uk) so users can select areas of interest and download ready-made datasets. The approach—enabled by Ordnance Survey’s datasets—has published 80+ products with 10,000+ downloads, saved an estimated £50,000–£60,000 a year, reclaimed about 2,500 staff hours annually, and met INSPIRE requirements at minimal extra cost.

Forestry Commission

Ian Macleod

Mapping and Geodata Programme Manager