My main interest in OSM is attempting to map public rights of way in the countryside such as bridleways and footways. I have read advice that a way such as a cycleway should only be mapped if someone else can verify its existence somehow – such as physical signs on the route. However, as anyone knows who has tried to follow footpaths in the countryside, many PROWs have no visible presence at certain times of the year – after ploughing or sometimes through fields of tall wheat or rapeseed. There are often no field edge markers which indicate which route you are supposed to take. If you are lucky, those who have gone before will have started to make a trail across a newly planted crop, which then tends to become the accepted route for that part of the footpath. Very often walkers consult their Ordnance Survey map before they strike out across an unmarked field, although the OS map may not be up to date with the legally-binding Definitive Map held by the County Council.

So hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. The aim, as per the Wiki UK_Countryside_mapping is to represent ways with a legitimate “foot=yes or foot=designated” tag. In the absence of signposts, in practice the guide for UK walkers is the OS map, but if I walk a route which I believe follows the OS map for the purposes of a GPS trace, is this not using derived-data? Many people will walk round field-edges where they find the PROW blocked by impenetrable crops – but the arbitray nature of this clearly makes it unsuitable for OSM.
If you don't map bits of a footpath because of lack of signposts, then foot-routes between villages etc lose their function as a route, and become disconnected isolated snippets of path, which seems to me pretty pointless mapping.

Is there a solution to this?

The answer is NO.

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osm.wiki/St_Peter%27s_Way

Every inch of St Peter's Way from Ongar to Bradwell has now been been walked and mapped by myself and partner Carol. Doing it in bite-sized chunks, it has taken 6 weeks. Some of the route is beautifully laid out which great scenery, but unfortunately, like so many rural footpaths in England, some parts are overgrown with weeds and brambles.
It was also interesting to note that even the latest 2009 Ordnance Survey map was significantly out on one or two parts of the route, when compared with official county council FP signs.

Now to return to doing the Essex Way....

Walked the Essex Way from Cressing through as far as Great Leighs, about 11 miles in all. When editing the map, found a few instances of previously mapped FPs which bore no relation to the GPS route or to OS maps, and some mapped FPs that didn't exist at all. It's much harder trying to reconcile different parts of routes which have previously been badly drawn, than it is to draw a new way on top of a GPS track in JOSM.

osm.org/user/Qichina/traces/397576

Having walked the Epping to Ongar and Ongar to Willingale sections to get a GPS tracklog, I spent ages doing a large JOSM (1607) edit of the first section - which is supposed to be 7.2 miles, but the odometer read more like 7.8.

The validator plugin in JOSM is excellent, so I spent some time editing odd errors on the pre-existing map data, but couldn't cover everything. After hours of work, the damned thing refuses to load. I even tried loading the .osm file into Merkaartor but that can't parse the conflicting data it's getting from somewhere in the Epping area - & that's before I've even hit the upload button.

The Ongar to Willinggale is however drawn and uploaded successfully. (about 4.5 miles). More to walk tomorrow - only another 70 miles to go!
Hope to meet up with Ed Loach's Essex Way track at the Harwich end before the summer has gone!

osm.org/user/Qichina/traces/397573
osm.org/user/Qichina/traces/397575

Continued mapping of Margaretting and Margaretting Tye near junction of A12.
Changeset: 1240231

Interesting to see that Google Maps and Multimap (MS Virtual Earth) contain 2 identical mispellings of road names in the area. Both have Pennys Lane spelt as "Penny's Lane" (ie with an apostrophe), and both have Ivy Barn Lane as a plural Ivy Barns Lane.
At first, I thought mutual Easter Eggs maybe, but I see that both Virtual Earth and Google Maps/Earth use copyright Tele Atlas data.

Trying to get hang of Potlatch for starters - there is clearly huge potential here to aid my interest in documenting and keeping the PROW open in Britain.