This is great. When I was looking for my missing cat I discovered so many hidden trails in my borough that was just amazing. For example a gap between two residential homes I thought it leads to someone's garden but actually it was a quite long public footpath with signs of homeless people camping on it. I also found two abandoned properties that I wouldn't see in Google Maps. One of which was totally overgrown with bushes, weeds and someone even left a half of the car there. Then I found an article that the owner of the site was ordered to clear it, but that it seems has never happened. Cat returned a few days later.
OS is certainly not definitive, although they are very good.
1) There is a disclaimer on OS maps that says so
2) The definitive map is held by local councils
3) A right of way can exist without registration, and is created through use. The medieval alley ways in my local town only recently became registered after hundreds of years of use. They were always rights of way and you could not have prevented their use.
4) There is a right to roam in Scotland and a limited right to some land in England and Wales under CROW Act.
I'm in Scotland - I don't think that applies to the same extent. I should note that most of the footpaths around here were built by the farmers who own the land!
"While in England and Wales, highway authorities have a duty to maintain legally recognised maps of rights of way, in Scotland different legislation applies and there is no legally recognised record of rights of way."
I do a lot of walking in Scotland and I've never paid any attention to whether a path is described as a "Right of Way" or not - mostly it seems of historical interest for places like the wonderful "Jock's Road":
As I understand from chekcing how to do it, designations in Openstreetmap are supposed to be done on the basis of signs on the ground and verifying the route by walking it (combined with local authority reference data, which I understand is definitive). If someone has taken an interest, the paths (and other features) in an area are likely to be in a better state in OSM than an OS map from some years ago, and possibly better than the master OS data. (Obviously mileage varies -- though one hopes not far outside GPS or satellite imagery tolerances.) I guess the place to start is https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Access_provisions_in_the...
A few years ago I learned that Rancho San Antonio has an extension that goes all the way up to a couple hundred feet of my house, accessible by an unmarked, easy to miss little trail at the west end of Stevens Creek: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3223461,-122.0789312,3a,75y,.... It leads the Hammond-Snyder Loop Trail (which hasn't been much of a loop for years–it's been closed for a watershed project that should've ended a while ago) which is a nice way to get to Anza Knoll, which is not all that tall but has a pretty good view of the valley (a more obvious way to access it is on the other side of Cristo Rey Drive). If you follow the train tracks it goes past a culvert for Stevens Creek under I-280 next to which seems to be the local hangout spot for teenagers–it's heavily graffitied (unlike any other part of Cupertino I have seen) and it looks like someone's constructed a sort of BMX park out of the dirt. And this is just from me walking in an ~2 mile radius in the suburbs! There's a whole lot of cool things you can find while walking that no online mapping service will cover.
During lockdown we discovered many walks that I'd not found in 10 years of living here. I also dug out my paper OS map of the area which is more complete than online references.
As they say, there are many paths in the UK but it can take a lot of research to find long routes that don't leave you on a busy road with no pavement. I hope this project is a success and can't wait to use it.
I was going to ask how this is any different from the data that already exists in OpenStreetMap.
The [FAQ page] answers this:
> Slow Ways walking routes – drafted, tested, reviewed and verified by volunteers – suggest the best ways to get between neighbouring towns, cities and villages. Our mapping and routing will show a limited number of paths, making it easier to see and plan journeys.
I call bullshit (somewhat imprudently). I don't understand why they can already put together some professional looking photos, but are not yet willing to release the interesting data.
There are plenty of companies that’ll create a professional looking website for your product, whether it exists or not. That doesn’t mean anything.
What I find more surprising is announcing such a project if there is no result yet, now they get buzz and create disappointment and I don’t see what they gain for it.
That was my point. Announcing that something will (i.e. may) be available in the future is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot and lose a lot of sympathy.
"During lockdown 700 volunteers from across the country collaborated to produce a first draft of the Slow Ways. This incredible effort has led to the creation of 7,500 routes that collectively stretch for over 110,000km."
The map visible is from the first draft. I don't know why they haven't released the first draft, but it could be that they don't want to release potentially unsafe routes. The pretty website is designed to entice volunteers, which is why "Up for helping us?" is front and centre. It led me to sign up.
I really appreciate how this guy understands that the map is not the territory - the mere appearance of a line in a dataset doesn't mean it's really walkable in practice, and he wants people to research what the situation on the ground is.
Another potentially quite serious problem is up to date information on whether things like bridges are in place - its fairly common for footbridges not to be shown on maps or for bridges on OS maps to have long since been washed away or so dangerous as to be impassable.
They've aggregated tons of bike and running routes so you can see where other people have ran/biked before. Good to use in the woods when the trails aren't very obvious, just use the 'find me' button on the map and then you can see where you are and which trail goes where.
This is fantastic thanks. I've moved to a new area, and some of what's here looks like it might be people in cars (some is definitely on trains) but I can see some good routes over fields. Particularly this shows me that a lot of people go down a route I thought connected but wasn't sure and couldn't find the time to check (a long way back if it's not part of a loop).
Except OS data is surprisingly badly suited to this.
OS doesn't have a topological (=connected, routable) database of public rights of way. The green lines you see drawn on a Landranger map are just that: lines on a map. I don't need to explain how having a routable database would make a project like Slow Ways so much simpler.
OS, of course, doesn't have accessibility information like stiles, gates, or surface quality, which OSM often has.
I love OS maps, but they are increasingly being marginalised to B2B applications (particularly utilities) and keen walkers. Most UK cyclists have migrated to OSM and, judging from people I see out and about here in the Cotswolds, casual walkers are increasingly going that way too.
OS maps are invaluable for wilder areas (e.g. Scottish Highlands) but they seem pretty poor compared to OSM for low level walks here in Fife. The don't show a lot of paths, paths they do show don't really exist and often they show narrow paths as tracks.
Another weird thing that happens on OS maps is that some paths are shown on 1:50,000 maps but not on 1:25000!
But look at how you get footpaths to be legally protected, and how you get them protected again after they're been forgotten, and how to protect new ones - using evidence from reputable archive sources like Ordnance Survey - that's how they argue these cases.
You're showing me the result - I'm telling you how that gets achieved in practice.
For those who don't know, the Rambler Association has been fighting for new and ancient foot paths and "rights to roam" for 90 years in the UK.
England in particular has a long and complex history of land being gifted by royalty and clergy to sycophants leading to the rest of us being screwed over for literally a thousand years!
An awful lot of OS data is actually available directly from them under the open government licence in recent years. Recently they added their UPRN (unique property reference number) database and some other ones.
OpenMap Local and OpenZoomstack are both available as open data, and give an awful lot of what most people are looking for when it comes to map data.
OSM is noticeable by absence of any mention I can see on the web site, sadly, and it's not even clear the data will be licensed compatibly. (The OSM UK mail list demonstrates the obsession^Wcare which at least some contributors devote to mapping.)
Fantastic initiative and set up and presented in a nice, understated and sensible way.
I’m wondering if similar projects would work outside of the UK. As far as I know, the UK is pretty unique in the fact that basically all land is freely accessible by anyone, except when explicitly forbidden?
For example here in the Netherlands, basically anything that isn’t a public street is off limits, except when the owner of the land explicitly grants access.
I'm in the process of walking the Munros and I'm careful to check with landowners about access during the deer stalking season - I've never had a landowner be anything other than completely helpful.
NB Walkhighlands is a superb site covering walks throughout Scotland, not just the Highlands:
> basically all land is freely accessible by anyone, except when explicitly forbidden
That's not strictly true for England. Although it's not illegal to trespass (outside of power stations, military bases and ports) unless you cause damage while doing so.
An interesting video on the same subject [1]. The mapping also has to do with the path being recognised as such, as it might otherwise cease to be legally publicly accessible in 2026.
