Uncertainty surrounds the future of OS's most popular mapping for walkers and outdoor enthusiasts

A public consultation on the future of Ordnance Survey mapping failed to materialise this week.

Despite assurances from a Government minister that the 90-day exercise would start this week, there has been a deafening silence on the matter. The consultation was due to start in response to Gordon Brown’s November announcement with worldwide web inventor Tim Berners-Lee on his Making Data Public project.

The Department for Communities and Local Government was scehduled to open up the issue to public debate this week, with interested parties having three months to make their submissions. Minister Ian Austin told Parliament he expected the consultation to start in the week beginning 14 December. The consultation would also reveal which map data the Government proposed freeing.

In November, a spokesperson for the DCLG told grough emphatically the mapping in question would not be: ‘the type of map you would use for a walk in the Peak District’. Yet the official announcement referred to mid-scale mapping, which OS defines as maps in the range 1:10,000 to 1:50,000 – exactly the most useful scales for walkers, mountaineers, cyclists and mountain bikers – offering the tantalising prospect of free online maps for outdoor leisure use, saving enthusiasts considerable amounts of money yet blowing a hole in the OS budget.

Prospect, the union representing 900 specialist grades, including cartographers, surveyors, IT specialists and marketing staff at the country’s official mapping agency, condemned the confusion caused by the surprise announcement of the Making Data Public move by the Prime Minister.

OS director general Vanessa Lawrence

The union met with OS director general Vanessa Lawrence earlier this month in talks described by Prospect as ‘constructive’. Negotiator Ben Middleton said: “The Government’s approach has, to date, been woeful. There has been no meaningful consultation with key stakeholders prior to proposals being brought forward for public consultation and, it appears, little if any thought, given to how the issues of freeing up data, ownership and business model might be brought sensibly into balance.”

It would appear that the Gordon Brown announcement caught Ordnance Survey on the hop, with all enquiries being referred to the DCLG which told grough the freeing of data referred to ‘scales of 1:10,000 or larger’ which would have precluded the popular, smaller-scale leisure mapping used by outdoor enthusiasts and digital mapping suppliers, including grough through our own grough route online mapping and route-planning system. Commercial partners are eagerly awaiting clarification on a matter that seems to have been dogged by confusion and contradiction.

There was also condemnation on the Guardian newspaper’s Free Our Data blog,  which has long campaigned for more Government data, including those handled by OS, to be made available without charge.

Referring to Ian Austin’s statement that the consultation would begin in the week beginning 14 December, the blog says: “That’s this week. This week is almost over. What, it takes a week to launch a consultation? There are international experts who can do it quicker. Meanwhile I tried phoning the DCLG press office (no reply on multiple lines) and emailing it (no response).

“Helluva way to organise a consultation.”

grough once again approached Ordnance Survey for an explanation of the delay in launching the consultation but we were again referred to the Communities and Local Government office, which is the department with overall responsibility for OS.

No-one from the Department for Communities and Local Government had returned grough’s telephone calls or emails at the time of publishing.