Case Study: Portsmouth City Council rapidly locates specialist suppliers for emergency response with Ordnance Survey Points of Interest

Portsmouth City Council - Customer Case Study

Portsmouth City Council ran a multi-agency emergency planning exercise that exposed a practical logistics challenge: engineers on-site needed specialist lifting gear, heavy plant and timber, while evacuees in rest centres required food with specific dietary needs (halal and kosher). To meet this need the Council relied on Ordnance Survey’s location data, notably the Points of Interest dataset alongside OS VectorMap District and OS MasterMap Imagery Layer, integrated into their GIS.

Using Ordnance Survey’s Points of Interest (a 3.9 million‑feature dataset with multi‑level classification and National Grid coordinates), the Council’s GIS team quickly located and plotted suppliers, retrieved contact details and placed orders for equipment and specialist food. The Ordnance Survey data enabled rapid, informed decision‑making during the exercise, became integral to Portsmouth City Council’s emergency planning function, and delivered clear operational value by speeding supplier identification and response.

Portsmouth City Council

John Shurvington

GIS Manager