We are in unprecedented times, never in my lifetime have I experienced such a global upheaval.  With the current UK Government lock-down we are required to Stay At Home.  However, we are permitted to leave the home for specific things, one of the those is to exercise once a day.

Exercise is still important for people’s physical and mental wellbeing, so we can leave our homes for exercise once a day.  The caveat to this is that we must stay local and use open spaces near to your home where possible.  The key point is that we must not travel to a place of exercise.

So where can you take the dog, go for a walk or run?

A large part of our major towns and cities are made of ‘green space’. this is defined as any vegetated land or water within an urban area.  This includes parks, gardens, playing fields, children’s play areas, woods and other natural areas, grassed areas, cemeteries and allotments. Green corridors like paths, disused railway lines, rivers and canals.

 

You may not think there is much ‘green space’ in our modern cities.  Well, roughly 47% of Greater London is ‘green’ or which 33% of London is natural habitats within open space.  So you can see there is no excuse for not being able to us green space.

But, where can I find this green space near to where I live?

By far, the easiest way to discover greenspaces near you is with the free Greenspace layer in OS Maps.   OS Maps is a multi-platform, multi-facetted software system that allows you to plan and execute walks.  It’s multi layering system allows great versatility and functionality.  But more importantly in this situation – it will show you where all the greenspace is around you.

With the aid of the greenspace layer, you will be amazed at just how much greenspace there is around you.  Even the inner cities have plenty of areas to walk the walk or take a run.  All that you have to do is click the ‘Target Icon’ on your app and this centres on your GPS position.  Select the ‘greenspace’ layer and bingo – you are sorted.

Then, once the ‘lockdown is all over and we start to return to ‘normal’ you can use the rest of the amazing functionality provided by OS Maps.  Plan all of your walks, print them onto waterproof paper or download the route to your smart phone and follow using GPS.

Imagine having all 607 OS Leisure maps on your smartphone

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