Government

Public Maps for Regional and Local Government

Gone are the days when all the council offices and services are in one location. Now councils want to be in the community, but this policy can make it very confusing for the constituents looking for services.

Where do I pay my dog license fee? Where is the library? Where can you see your building plans or property information? It often isn’t as easy or obvious as people may think, especially services that people do not frequently use.

Councils often have public meetings and put on events for the community such as concerts. They spend huge sums of money maintaining parks and reserves and the traditional focus on promoting them has been brochures or flyers. Many people are unaware of parks very close to their homes because they only read these documents if they perceive an immediate need.

Councils provide halls and rooms for charity groups and clubs and placing them on a web map could make life much easier for people to find.

Many councils have wonderful GIS systems and make parts of them available on their web sites. These are especially useful when looking at property boundaries and other town planning information, but they can often appear complex to the average person with limited computer skills.

A web service such as SmartFIND is the ideal tool to make it easy to find all council services in your community. Add on some of the layers available from GeoSmart such as health and medical, schools, public toilets, cafes, car parks and you have something that will be well used and enjoyed by rate payers, residents and visitors.