<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.46371&lon=-1.81328&zoom=17&layers=M"> </a>Dear Councillors</div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">
<br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">The new major development in the highways landscape at Church Road to accommodate the New Tesco supermarket deserves to be represented on maps of Yardley to show yourself as an up-to-date community to the world.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">Help is at hand - local volunteers from OpenStreetMap took <b><i><font size="4">2-3 days</font></i></b> to have this major change to Birmingham's cityscape surveyed and displayed on a globally-recognised online digital map. You also have the base data available for producing maps in any cartographic style and highlighting any geospatial data you choose for any community publicity you want. <b>AND IT'S FREE</b> of all royalties. See <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.46371&lon=-1.81328&zoom=17&layers=M">here</a> for our map</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">And when the Tesco supermarket opens it will be on our map within 2-3 days, available to the citizens of Yardley and the world-at-large.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">It's a great example of what citizen volunteers can achieve who passionately care about how their neighborhoods are portrayed. Kings Heath organisations can demonstrate how up to date they are in the digital world by making use of this resource.<div>
<br></div><div>You'll search in vain on the big mapping providers for this change: none of Googlemaps, Bing, Mapquest, the AA, the Ordnance Survey,or Multimap had this change on their maps today as I write this email. </div>
<div><br></div><div>TIME TO PUT YARDLEY ON THE MAP: OPENSTREETMAP TAKES DAYS; COMMERCIAL MAPPING PROVIDERS TAKE MONTHS IF NOT YEARS</div><div><br></div><div>Several dozen volunteers, including residents, UK and global visitors have achieved an incredibly rich and up-to-date map of our city. If we could collaborate with Birmingham City Council and community organisations in a structured way, together we could achieve far more and really put Birmingham on the map! In fact we could lead the world in community-based digital city-mapping where a City administration, community organisations and its population work together to produce something faster,cheaper and better than what's available commercially. </div>
<div><br></div><div>We are favourably identified as a successful "Big Society"project in a <a href="http://www.arnaudriegert.com/wp-content/uploads/international-examples-big-society.pdf" style="color:rgb(0, 0, 204)" target="_blank">research paper written by the Office of Civil Society in the Cabinet Office.</a> (Appendix A1)</div>
<div><br></div><div>I look forward to putting even more of Yardley on the map with you</div><div><br></div><div>Regards</div><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>Brian Prangle</div><div>Mappa-mercia Community Co-ordinator</div>
<div>0121 604 1141</div></font></div>