Over the past two years it has become apparent that the OS Openspace mapping was being used to the limit of the existing free availability on our website. Use of the website and in particular the mapping to show event and accommodation locations and to display the routes of the long distance paths has increased by over 30% year on year to such an extent that to continue with Openspace would have incurred substantial annual charges.

In view of this potential ongoing cost and strong membership growth the National Committee, on the recommendation of the Internet Sub-committee (ISC), took the decision to build our own map server using the free data available from OS. The initial part of that build has now been put live and some of you will have noticed a small change in the mapping display. If you find any bugs please let us know. The advantage of this new mapping is to eliminate annual costs and to give more flexibility for use of the mapping in the future.