Chorley Day

In 1987 a Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Chorley was asked to produce, and delivered, a report for the Secretary of State for the Environment into the handling of Geographic Information.

I work for the Association for Geographic Information, a body which came into being in 1989 as a direct result of some of the recommendations of Lord Chorley's report.

So was this report a milestone in the discussion of Geographic Information in the UK? Did it lead to major changes in the way Government dealt with GIS? Or did it simply gather dust? Chorley not!

Thankfully the report did much to foster the development of GIS in the UK. But could more have been done?

I am not planning to answer that. This post is simply to note that we at AGI are rightly marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Chorley Report. On 19th June, at the London Chamber of Commerce, we are running a Chorley Day to celebrate, and I am sure that is the right word, the anniversary of the report. The full programme has not yet been finalised, but this will be an opportunity for a wide ranging discussion of GIS twenty years on. And is is particularly pleasing that Lord Chorley will be attending the event. I am certainly looking forward to it.

Further details are on the AGI website.