[Talk-GB] Lancashire prow_ref format (Was: Public Rights of Way - legal vs reality)

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

On Mon, 11 May 2020 at 14:12, nathan case <nathancase at outlook.com> wrote:
> Thanks Tony and Adam for your responses. It is good to know that LCC have released the parish IDs in the data as well. Makes a lookup table easy to produce.
>
> It still remains that if I were a casual mapper and wanted to add an unmapped path to OSM, the primary source for the prow_ref is the council’s map.

Unless you've been given permission by the copyright holder to make
use of a map like that, then it's off-limits for use in OSM. The map
at https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/roads-parking-and-travel/public-rights-of-way/public-rights-of-way-map/
is currently not working for me, but is does say "(c) Crown copyright
and database rights 2020 Ordnance Survey 100023320" below it. It's
likely that it was showing lines for Rights of Way on top of an
Ordnance Survey base map -- in which case it certainly couldn't be
used for OSM mapping. You might be able to get permission to use the
overlay lines, but you'd have to detach them from the base map before
using them. Otherwise you might be inferring location details from the
OS base map. Ordnance Survey are quite strict on what they consider to
be derived data from their maps, so OSM needs to be very careful
around them.

What we do have permission to use in OSM is the raw GIS files from
Lancashire. As already noted, these contain both the parish IDs and
names. It's up to whoever renders them what to show as labels.
Hopefully we can agree on a prow_ref format here, and then any tool
authors will follow that in what they display to mappers.

> It is then complicated that other sources use an mix of formats. (Even for me, parish IDs are the most straightforward way of adding prow_ref data to OSM.)

Both myself (who runs PRoW Comparison tools) and Nick (who runs MapThe
Paths) intend to ensure our tools show whatever prow_ref format is
agreed. So that should be two common sources of data for mappers to
use.

Best wishes,

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker