Supporting OpenStreetMap in the West Midlands.
The National Memorial Arboretum had been nagging at us for months, being a cultural resource of national significance situated within our mapping “domain”, and having only the sketchiest of coverage in OSM (thanks to those who had got it to … Continued
A mapper’s job is never finished! For those of you who might think that the UK and Western Europe are pretty much complete and we don’t have much to do – there’s ALWAYS something changing somewhere. Today, Sunday 22 July, … Continued
Spaghetti Junction is 40 years old this month; having opened for traffic in May 1972. Its official name is Gravelly Hill Interchange and forms J6 of the M6 where it meets the Aston Expressway. The name of Spaghetti Junction was … Continued
“More Canals than Venice” is something you’ll hear often in Birmingham or from Brummies anywhere, to describe the city. It’s mostly a defensive mechanism, I believe, because Birmingham does not enjoy the best of reputations in the nation’s affections and … Continued
Regular readers of this blog might have the impression that Birmingham is filled with splendidly maintained examples of architectural heritage, as I try to liven up mapping on the ground by centering surveying trips around them. Nothing could be further … Continued
Can anyone beat this for density of surveillance cameras? I know we live in a security-conscious world but I think this is a bit excessive. Spotted on Broad Street in Birmingham between the Hyatt Hotel and Symphony Hall. Or maybe … Continued
Thursday May 3 saw us on the first of our summer itinerant meetings where we strike out from our regular winter quarters of a regular pub in Birmingham, and go touring around the region. This has two benefits: it gets … Continued
I know we have enough on our hands with mapping what we can see: but what about what’s under our feet (or wheels)? On my travels around the West Midlands countryside I regularly come across pipeline markers like the one illustrated. Depending … Continued
Within the West Midlands we have surveyed and edited many thousands of addresses. It can be tedious work, made more frustrating by a simple error that everyone makes initially. This is recording the first and last house numbers in a … Continued
To make adding buildings to OSM slightly more interesting, I’ve been targeting listed buildings (for non-UK readers these are legally protected buildings and structures that have historic or architectural significance, with strict rules on alteration and preservation). Obviously the graffiti … Continued