The City of Perth’s Heritage, Culture and The Arts Portal has won the People and Community category of the WA Spatial Excellence Awards.

 

The awards are jointly presented by SSSI (Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute) and SIBA (Spatial Industries Business Association).  Their work encompasses the disciplines of land, hydrographic engineering and mining surveying, photogrammetry, cartography, geodesy, remote sensing and spatial information science. 

 

As a result of a joint project between the City and Digital Mapping Solutions (DMS), the City now has a fully integrated database of heritage management and conservation-related information which staff can access through a single media portal.

 

In their citation, the judging panel commented: “The City of Perth places a high importance on the preservation and conservation of heritage buildings within their local government area.  Their approach goes beyond that normally taken by a local government authority.” 

 

The City’s successful program brings together various information sources and makes them available via a digital mapping system.
 
Using the IntraMaps platform, it is now possible to access a vast amount of heritage information and spatial data on a ‘one-stop shop’ basis.

 

City of Perth CEO Frank Edwards said the City recognised the value of linking heritage data with other property information, such as rates and land ownership, and engaged DMS to assist in implementing the portal.

 

“DMS is a WA-based company that is a prominent provider of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to local governments throughout Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Edwards said. 

 

“Before development of the portal, individual business units managed their data in their own way, creating issues such as data duplication and inconsistency between units.

 

“There are about 360 heritage-listed sites in the city with a large amount of associated documentation in a variety of formats.  The information could include photographs, reports, tenure information, conservation plans and heritage assessment documentation.

 

“Our new system will make it easier to access such information and to manage the City’s award-winning heritage program more efficiently.

 

“The community benefits from quicker turnaround times for development applications and information requests.”

 

The program is still in its infancy and it is intended that it will be available to the general public in the future.