The Improvement Service
The Spatial Hub's remit is to collate and standardise Scottish local authority's spatial data to form coherent, up-to-date national datasets, that can be shared with the data community to provide better insight, analysis and innovation. Currently, Spatial Hub data is only available to members of the One Scotland Mapping Agreement (OSMA)
| Title | Copyright or Terms of Use |
|---|---|
| Community Council Boundaries (Improvement Service WMS) |
Community councils are required to be established by local authorities. They are the most local tier of statutory representation in Scotland. They bridge the gap between local authorities and communities and help to make public bodies aware of the opinions and needs of the communities they represent. Community councils are statutory consultees under various processes, such as for planning applications. There are many instances where polygons do not tessellate or snap to local authority boundaries. The Spatial Hub processing can correct for some minor gap errors (<5m) but not larger ones. Such gaps in the dataset mean that it cannot potentially be used for some kinds of spatial analysis e.g. point in polygon, because some point locations may fall within the gaps. These gaps either require amendment at source or approval for the IS to change. |
| Local Landscape Areas - Scotland (SpatialHub WMS) |
There are many areas where the scenery is highly valued locally and local authorities often give these landscapes a local designation. This is to ensure that the landscape is not damaged by inappropriate development, and in some cases encourage positive landscape management. These designations play an important role in developing an awareness of the landscape qualities that make particular areas distinctive and promote a community's sense of pride in their surroundings. The names used for such Local Landscape Areas currently vary from one local authority to another. For example, they are termed 'Areas of Great Landscape Value' in Moray, 'Special Landscape Areas' in Dumfries and Galloway, and 'Sensitive Landscape Character Areas' in Ayrshire. Guidance published by Scottish Natural Heritage and Historic Scotland (see below) suggests the name be standardised to Local Landscape Areas (LLA) now. LLAs complement the National Scenic Area designation, which identifies those landscapes that are seen as nationally important owing to their unsurpassed scenery. |
