Should boundaries be tied to the real world?
The consultation asks whether OA boundaries should be neatened to real world features. This could be achieved by snapping them to, for example, OS MasterMap.
OA boundaries are largely abstract. They were built up from artificial Thiessen polygons drawn around 2001 Census addresses. As a result they cut across all other real world features, as do SOA boundaries further up the hierarchy.
Justin Martin picked up on this earlier in the blog and posted a comment. He's keen to see a more coherent hierarchy of geographies down to individual features (or TOIDS). There's clearly a potential data licensing issue here, but is this something worth investigating further? What might the benefits be?
It's worth clarifying that any such neatening of the boundaries would not allow addresses and households to shift between OAs. There would be limits, therefore, to what could be achieved. Clearly if geographies were to be redrawn from scratch then there would be a much wider debate to have. This is covered fully in the consultation paper, the survey, and in my earlier "Stick or twist" post.
Other comments received so far have stated that the boundaries should be left alone. That OAs are simply meant to group populations. They are data containers and there is no need to make them fit physical features. Is this a view that resonates with you?