Surveying paths

Before you can start any physical work on your path network, you need to know what is there at the moment and what work it requires.  So you need to undertake, or get someone else to do, an accurate survey of the path and the proposed work.

There are three types of survey:

Area survey - this involves looking at the paths in an area and finding out what's there.  You should have already done this as part of getting to know your area.

Condition survey - this looks at the state of the path to establish what works might be feasible.

• Specification survey - this is carried out when all permissions and funding is in place and involves specifying exactly what works are required to make it suitable for use.

There are agreed ways of undertaking surveys and you can find more detail on these in the Lowland Paths Guide.   Each different survey type will give you a different output – the Lowland Paths Guide also shows some example survey sheets to give you an idea of what to expect.

Mapping

It’s really important that you have accurate maps of the paths you are surveying (or the proposed route of any new paths).

Many Ordnance Survey (OS) maps can only be reproduced with a licence, so you can’t just photocopy your old map, draw on it and then distribute it.  Some scales of OS map are available for free from their website, however you might find these aren’t suitable for your purposes.  Some people have digital mapping such as Memory map on their computer, which you can use for non-commercial purposes.  Alternatively your local access authority may be able to assist you by providing blank maps under the terms of their OS licences.  You may also be able to use the maps on websites like Google Maps or Multimap / Bing maps although they don’t always have good coverage for areas that aren’t roads.  Other sites such as Map My Walk or StreetMap use Ordnance Survey mapping which could be useful, but you need to take care with copyright rules before using these maps.