A MAN who has created several thousand free maps of villages has been told he needs to pay thousands of pounds to continue his work.

In 2003 Colin Day made a map of his village, Thornton Rust in Wensleydale.

Based on the national park’s maps, it showed the location of every house with their names in a bid to assist delivery drivers who frequently got lost.

Following its success Mr Day, an 81-year-old retired computer programmer, has since created a further 2,741 maps naming 101,795 properties across the North of England.

Realising they were based on Ordnance Survey material, he sought their permission and was granted it free of charge but he has recently been informed he needs a licence to continue his work.

"I have had approaches from a number of people, requesting more maps," he said. “I tell them that I can make outline maps if they can fill in the house names. To date no one has succeeded in going this way. I could have access to all OS mapping information if I were to pay several thousand pounds per year, and I would

then have the right to produce maps as I had been doing."

However, if Mr Day coughed up the money he would have to charge anyone viewing or printing a map from his website about £13 per page. Mr Day has already enjoyed great success with his maps.

Following his work for Wensleydale he received a request from the Fire Service and Swaledale followed.

News of his maps spread, and Mr Day branched out further afield from North Yorkshire to Cumbria, Lancashire, Teesdale and Northumberland. His maps were used by delivery drivers, paramedics, GPs, clergy, chiropodists and estate agents.

Now Mr Day's website www.colinday.co.uk/maps receives around 100 visits per day.

Despite Mr Day’s protestations to OS and a supportive letter from Rishi Sunak MP to OS, he has been told the case remains the same.

An OS spokesman said: “OS produces a range of digital mapping products with over a third available for free through the OS OpenData portal.


"We believe these mapping datasets provide the information which will allow Mr Day to continue to produce his maps and avoid any copyright issues.”