"the legal, lawful, be all and end all, the last word, authoritative, Definitive Map (DM)"

 

1 October 2020

Thanks David.  You are brilliant at engaging - ten out of ten - and others could take note and learn from you - hint, hint!!  But sorry, it means I make more work for you in having to read this!

At New Brick Barns - OS Grid Ref: SO 66421 69882 - your cartographers have the PROW, very sensibly going round the house and garden but the legal, lawful, be all and end all, the last word, authoritative, Definitive Map (DM) has it going slap bang through the middle!  See the maps, attached, below.

Further north, both yours and the DM have the bridleway Shropshire Rights of Way: 0549/15/2  going due north to Tetstill​, in almost a straight line​.  On the ground, it is a sunken lane ​zig zagging diagonally down the steep slope to the west​, towards the R Rea​then, NE​​.  OS Grid Ref: SO 66172 71149.  See my screenshots, below.  Your aerial photographs should have picked up on this.  Very poor!

But, how do your cartographers decide when to follow the DM and when to follow your own aerial photographs, David?  

There are further discrepancies/nonsense at Marlbrook Farm/Dower House on this same bridleway.  In total, five PROWs at Marlbrook in a one kilometre square need attention.  But nothing important ever seems to change and we get stuck in the dim and distant past in a fast, climate changing world!

​I think, y​ourselves and the local authorities need to get your act together and be much more accurate with your mapping.  Otherwise, it leads to trespass that is becoming a criminal offence.  Reform is much needed.

On open access land, some paths marked on OS maps are drawn as straight lines or beautiful curves, in places​,​​ even when they are invisible on the ground​.  This is really misleading, not good enough and can be dangerous!  Please leave them off and just give us the accurately mapped​,​ ​as possible, ​crossings for rivers, hedges, fences, walls in open access land.

Best wishes and thanks for your excellent attention.

5 October 2020

As someone who works with the definitive maps (DM), I would like to read your perspective on what I have written in the e-mail, below to Ordnance Survey Customer Services.

Like Tony Blair's modernisation when he was PM, I do think the venerable DMs need modernising, updating and made easier to correct.  I am told, "We cannot amend the definitive map without a legal order being processed."  For less than 100 metres of many decades of a  bramble blocked and cul de sac PROW that has a sensible alternative that prevents the trespassing of the DM path, this is still not happening.  Is this because it is far too expensive and too long-winded a process for Worcestershire CC and they are short of staff?

However, here is an example where things have worked well.  I met a builder in Shropshire who paid £2,500 to move a PROW 100 metres to the next field corner along the road.  I think this was fair enough for the cost of the kissing gate and its installation.  The new map does appear on the Shropshire digital DM - money talks - but, it is taking a long time for the new path to show on the OS digital map.

Now, for the email, below for your comments, please.

Best wishes