Sqwyre.com is a longitudinal data series of commercial location data for England and Wales, updated continuously and quarterly since 2016. Whythawk developed the software platform and methodology, and secured the release of these commercial data via thousands of Freedom of Information requests. Data are wrangled into a common schema from numerous atomised sources, including the Valuations Office Agency (VOA), commercial ratepayer data – occupation status, ratepayer name, and actual rates paid – from most local authorities, including London boroughs, and enriched with national statistics data on employment and gross value add.
In 2021, MHCLG used aggregate data as part of analysis informing their Levelling Up Fund: Prioritisation of places methodology note. "The methodology was developed to help the Fund deliver its core objective of improving local communities by investing in local infrastructure that has a visible impact on people." The data below are the referenced aggregate totals, medians and distributions for industrial, retail, leisure, and office commercial locations at July 2020 aggregated for each local authority in England and Wales. They are released under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Chait, Gavin (2021): Sqwyre.com commercial location data aggregations for England and Wales as of July 2020. Whythawk, MHCLG. https://whythawk.com/index.php/research-reports/24-sqwyre-commercial-location-data-aggregations-for-england-and-wales-as-of-july-2020