FHODOT: the food hygiene open data OpenStreetMap tool

You don't need to install anything to use this tool; simply use the instance running on the OpenStreetMap development server.

You may wish to read the documentation on contributing or setting up a local development environment.

Why use food hygiene (FHRS) data?

• It's a rich source of open postcode and address data that can be used in OpenStreetMap because it's published under the Open Government Licence
• It provides a useful reminder of establishments you already know about but haven't mapped, and can help find areas that would benefit from a physical survey
• When establishments disappear from the FHRS data this is a useful indication that they may have closed down or changed name (see also Robert Whittaker's Survey Me!, which uses data from this tool)

Features of the tool

• Allows efficient matching of Food Hygiene Rating Scheme establishments and relevant OpenStreetMap objects in the UK through JOSM remote control or iD
• Suggests matches between FHRS and OSM data (based on proximity and fuzzy matching of names) on the 'Suggested matches' map layer
• Shows issues such as outdated fhrs:id tags or matches between objects with different postcodes (see red map markers and tables) or between distant objects (in particular on the 'Distant matches' map layer)
• Automatically parses FHRS addresses into the correct addr:* tags
• Shows matching progress by local authority district

Major improvements since the original FHRS/OSM comparison tool

• A much-improved user interface
• More efficient manual matching through JOSM remote control without having to view data on the FSA website
• Address parsing
• Continuous map scrolling without data being broken into districts
• Map-based display of progress by local authority district when zoomed out
• Includes data for Northern Ireland
• More maintainable code

Why not import the data in bulk?

• The locations of FHRS establishments are often inaccurate, sometimes being based on postcode centroids
• Although the tool can often suggest matches, these need to be verified by a human, and it can't find every match with an existing OpenStreetMap object
• Although the tool can often parse FHRS addresses into addr:* tags automatically, addresses still need checking
• Mappers will sometimes spot and fix other issues whilst matching objects

Licence

The majority of the code in this repository is published under the GNU General Public License v3.0, but where data is derived from other sources the relevant licence is indicated at the top of the file.