[Talk-GB] Scottish paths map

[Andy Townsend]

On 13/09/2021 17:14, Chris Andrew wrote:
> It's probably easier to post a link:
>
> https://www.ramblers.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/dont-lose-your-way-2026.aspx
>
> The aim is for no longer acknowledged footpaths to be re-recognised. 
> The government has given until 2026 (I think), as a cut off. Great 
> tools like OSM would build on the detail.

That's unrelated to Scotland though?

Mark Goodge's earlier email covered the key difference - there are all 
these paths in Scotland that people have the legal right to use, but 
aren't necessarily physically accessible, and even if they are, aren't 
appropriate for everyone.

Historically the Ramblers (at least where I've encountered them, in 
England and Wales) have tended to use Ordnance Survey Maps rather than 
OSM.  There are exceptions (at least one Ramblers Footpath Secretary 
regularly posts to this list).  I've never quite understood this - in 
Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and North Yorkshire, OSM has far more 
detail, and pretty much anywhere a tourist would want to go is in 
there.  There are some "rights of way in name only" missing from OSM, 
but even they are getting added*.

After reading https://www.ramblers.org.uk/scottishpathsmap a few 
Scottish OSMers asked, with justification, why updates were being made 
to a "new database"**.  I suspect that as far as the Ramblers are 
concerned OSM is just "not invented here" and therefore they've created 
something new to do the same job that we already do.  Whether the detail 
that we'd expect (e.g. surface, tracktype etc.) will be present in their 
data is an interesting question.

There are other examples of this sort of thing - arguably 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Ways is one (though I suspect that 
the there's a commercial imperative behind that that would preclude the 
use of OSM data for it).

Best Regards,

Andy

* which is why I found myself at the bottom of a tree-stump hole in 
Cropton Forest last weekend, trying to find my way through a thicket of 
gorse.

** e.g. https://twitter.com/donaldrnoble/status/1430799197859717121