Why housing needs to think differently about ‘place’
I arrived at the Ordnance Survey Innovation Festival 2026 235 years to the day after the organisation was founded. Like many people, I had assumed that Ordnance Survey was, quite simply, Britain’s mapmaker but I soon realised that I’d been looking at it completely the wrong way.
Ordnance Survey does produce maps but maps are almost the least interesting thing it does. Today, OS is one of the UK’s most important data organisations, providing the trusted geographic information that quietly underpins everything from emergency services and infrastructure to planning, utilities and housing. It’s ‘digital infrastructure’ hiding in plain sight.
The festival wasn’t a conventional technology conference. It brought together people from government, utilities, transport, housing, planning and environmental organisations to tackle real-world challenges through innovation ‘sprints’ and collaborative workshops. What emerged wasn’t a discussion about technology for technology’s sake but a discussion about ‘place’.
Connected decisions
One message kept recurring throughout the day – every decision is connected. For example, housing influences transport, transport affects employment, employment drives infrastructure, and infrastructure shapes energy. None of these challenges exists in isolation, yet too often they’re still planned that way.
One workshop illustrated the problem perfectly. A major housing development in west London had finally been completed after almost a decade of planning. The homes were ready for occupancy and families had signed tenancy agreements, but nobody could move in.
This was because there wasn’t enough electricity. The local grid’s capacity had already been allocated elsewhere, with nearby datacentres consuming the available supply. In short, the homes had been planned but the power hadn’t.
It wasn’t a housing failure or an energy failure but a failure to connect the available information early enough to make better decisions.
A common understanding
That story stayed with me because it reflects a challenge the housing sector faces every day. We often talk about innovation in terms of new systems, artificial intelligence or digital transformation, but the biggest opportunity might be much simpler: ensuring that everyone is working from the same understanding of ‘place’.
That’s where I believe Ordnance Survey is quietly becoming more significant than many of us realise.
I no longer see OS simply as Great Britain’s national mapping agency. I see it as the trusted foundation that allows housing providers, local authorities, planners, utilities and government agencies to work from a shared view of the world so that decisions become better, faster and less likely to create unintended consequences.
Sharing innovation
For Housing Technology, that felt particularly relevant because we’ve always believed that innovation comes from sharing ideas across the sector. Increasingly, however, the biggest innovations affecting housing won’t originate within housing itself. They’ll come from planning, energy, infrastructure, environmental science and organisations like Ordnance Survey. After all, maps tell us where we are but connected information helps us to decide where we go next.
If Ordnance Survey continues on this path, it won’t just be helping the country map out its future, it will also help Great Britain make better decisions about it.
We will be continuing this place-based theme during our new Spatial Matters 2026 event this November (details to follow soon).
George Grant is the CEO, publisher and co-founder of Housing Technology.
