About Walk 4 Life

Questions about the new subscription process 

From 22nd August 2016 you will need to subscribe to use functionality on the Walk4Life website.  Here are some questions you may have about the process. 

Why do I have to subscribe?

Funding for the website from the Department of Health stopped 4 years ago. Since then Walk Unlimited have been self financing the project; sadly we can't afford to do this anymore. In addition to hosting and maintaining the site we pay Ordnance Survey for every map view. With over 50,000 visits a month the running costs are high.

Our only options are to take down the website and lose it forever or ask our users to contribute to the running costs. We don't want to lose the site so we've decided to introduce a small subscription fee of £5 a year.

How do I subscribe?

To subscribe click the 'Join Now' button on the Home page (this button will not be available on the site until the 22nd August 2016). You will then be taken through the subscription process.

If you already have a username and password you will be asked to sign in during this process - this will ensure your subscription is linked to your account.

How do I pay? I don't have a Paypal account. 

You can choose to pay by Paypal or by credit or debit card.

The link to pay by credit or debit card is half way down the payment page.  You do not have to have a Paypal account to use this. 

If you do not like paying for things online then email us at walk4life@walk.co.uk and we can discuss the best way for you to pay. 

What will I be able to do if I subscribe that I can't do otherwise? 

You will be able to view walk details on Ordnance Survey 1:25K and 1:50K maps. You will be able to draw your own walks on the same OS base maps. You can log your activity and track your progess on a daily, monthly or yearly basis. You can create your own walking group and create your own walking challenges.

Will I lose the walks I have previously plotted ?

No, if you pay the £5 subscription fee you will be able to access all the walks you have previously plotted and all of the data you have added to the site. 

I dont want to pay the subscription fee what happens to my walks and my private data?

If you don't subscribe your data will remain in the Walk4Life database but you will not be able to access it. The walks you allowed to be shared with the public will still be accessible to other members of the site who have subscribed. Your private data and walks will remain private, no one will be able to see them. If you want us to delete your account then please email walk4life@walk.co.uk. Once we delete your account all your walks and data will also be deleted. 

Do I have to register again once I have paid the subscription fee ?

No, you do not have to register again. If you log in to the site before you pay the fee the site will recognise your email address and associate your payment with your account. 

Please can you send me the walks I have submitted to the site?

We are sorry we do not have the facility to download walks from the site and send them to you. Nor is there a facility for you to do this. 

I've subscribed and paid but can't access my walks - what should I do?

This error sometimes happens when the PayPal payment process doesn't complete. Please let us know by emailing walk4life@walk.co.uk and we will manually update your account.

General Use of the Website 

 I can't log in - help!

Remember that your username and password are case-sensitive so type them with capitals exactly as you did before. Also the username can't include any space or punctuation. This normally solves the problem, but if not there is a password reminder / reset facitiliy using an email address. 

How do I find a walk?

You can use the site to find a walk without signing up - this may be the easiest place to start. If you go to www.walk4life.info you will see the home page with a box showing a search - called "find a walk now".

Type your postcode into the box (the text inside will disappear) - either just the first half of your postcode or the full postcode and press 'search'. Hopefully you will now have a list of walks. If you don't see any walks select the tab "Search for a Walk" in the menu or press "Extend my search" from the home page. This way you can search a wider area - you can select up to 50 miles radius.

If you are not having any success try putting in a different place to see what you find. The computer uses an index at the back of a book to search through all those place names. It may find a couple of places in its index that match your search word, so it may ask you to specify which of its guesses you mean. This way you should find local walks.

My fitness is showing as zero - how does that work ?

The fitness test only works if you have completed a fitness test route and entered your time and pulse rate. It doesn't calculate your fitness on how far or how often you walk - so even if you have completed a lot of walks unless you have taken a walking fitness test your result will show as zero. More information is on the fitness test route pages.

What is a "tramper route"?

A tramper is an all-terrain wheelchair with rugged wheels and a low centre of gravity. Trampers have even scaled Snowdon! So, gradients or surfaces aren't always the challenge for people with a tramper. Neither is distance such a problem because the batteries tend to have a good range. However, any restricted widths (narrow gate), steps, stiles (obviously), narrow bridges or a chicane would or could be a barrier. Having wheelchair accessible toilets (or knowing other such facts before you go) is a big help for tramper users.

Some country parks, National Trust properties, nature reserves, National Parks and National Trails have trampers available locally to hire. At the same time they are now creating walks especially for trampers and disabled people who like a variety of countryside types and a bit of an adventure! Often a tramper route is also suitable for people with a rugged-type pushchair as well.

People with their own trampers need to be able to transport them to the start of the walk, which would mean a parking spot with enough room for a trailer as well. The disabled ramblers organises regular social rambles across the country on routes which have been checked beforehand.

Trampers are manufactured by Beamer Ltd although there are other similar machines on the market, for instance the TGA Breeze and the Horizon off-road scooters as this BBC discussion forum shows!

 I have added a walk in the wrong place, or made a mistake - how can I edit / delete it?

• Editing: 

When you add a route you need to double click to finish the route. Sometimes in trying to complete a route you can end up drawing your walk in the wrong place. If this happens and you save the walk at that moment, don't worry you will be able to edit it. When you are logged in and looking at the walk, along the top of the map, you should see a green "Edit" button (between "Share" and "Upload Image"). Just click on it and then the editing tools will appear. You can move the nodes about using the mouse to drag and drop. You can delete wrong nodes simply by hovering over them with the mouse and pressing "delete" on your keyboard. You can scrap the whole route and start again using the map tools on the left-hand side of the map. If you need more help on how to create / edit your routes, please go to this tutorial page.

• Deleting: 

If you are not happy at all with the route you created and would rather erase it completely, you have to get in touch with us. To do so, we have added a "delete form" that you will find under the "Edit" button located on top of the route you created. Hover your mouse over the "Edit" button (between "Share" and "Upload Image") and you will find "delete". Just click on it and the form will appear. You can then let us know why you want this route being deleted.

I’ve looked on your site and there aren’t any walks in my area!

We're sorry that you didn't find walks in your area. Walk Unlimited and our supporters have been adding routes in as many places as possible, but inevitably there are some areas which have yet to have walks added.

Try search a wider area - you can now search over a 50 mile area which should be enough to find you a walk. New walks are being added every day. You can add your own too of course, or encourage other people to! Please be patient and have another look in a few weeks.  Or try searching on a postcode, sometimes the search doesn't recognise a place name. 

The Walk4Life mapping doesn't cover Northern Ireland. If you live in Wales or Scotland you will probably find a few walks added by other people, but Walk Unlimited aren't actively promoting the website there (although it is great that people there have found it and started using it!)

Is there a legend or key to the map used on the website?

At the bottom of the map is a "map legend" button which opens up with information about the 1:25,000 scale mapping and the 1:50,000 scale mapping.  

All the maps are uploaded directly from the Ordnance Survey website and by default don't contain any key. However you can download the different legends from the Ordnance Survey (Look at the bottom of the page under "Map symbol sheets" or use the menu on the left-hand side).

The closest two rungs on the Walk4Life mapping zoom ladder are called "Street View" and its legend is available to download from a different place on the Ordnance Survey website.

Can I use copies of the printed maps in my own walks leaflet?

Walk Unlimited have a licence agreement with Ordnance Survey (OS) for every map tile viewed and the copyright text prints on the top-right hand corner of all the maps. Firstly, you need to ask yourself who are your leaflets being funded by? Walking for Health? The local Council? Another organisation?

All these bodies will probably have OS licence agreements of their own. Ordnance Survey prefers people to use the relevant local licence in any printed material. If you are being asked to produce leaflets for your health group or for your council or similar, then this is generally considered to be a fair use of their licence. It is this one you should use in your leaflets.

The local organisation may ask you to sign a licence agreement to become a "sub contractor" - but that is generally a formality and quite normal. As a result, you will then have permission to write that organisation's copyright text in the corner of your leaflet map. Part of that text is the licence number with the year. Exactly what to write is generally included in the licence agreement you will be asked to sign. Another thing to consider is that the map in any of these leaflets has to be smaller than A4 to fit within these rules, otherwise the copyright text is much longer and bigger!

If there is difficulty getting through to the right person in this organisation and asking the right questions they you may need to ask to speak to a GIS officer or an OS liaison officer. If there is still difficulty we may be able to help you! So in brief, provided the walks leaflet is what that local organisation supports, it is fairly likely that you will get permission to their OS licence number.

I can see a mistake on the base map, what should I do?

The mapping is from Ordnance Survey, you need to let them know, their email address is customerservices@ordnancesurvey.co.uk and you may like to attach a screen shot to help them.  OS reprint their paper maps every 4-5 years, but if there are big changes in a certain area (e.g. a housing development) they may bring this forward.  There is no specific number of changes they wait for before organising an update to the base map. 

Can I use your logo? 

The actual Walk4life logo (made out of jelly men bending over) belongs to Change4Life / Department for Health. It is best to contact Change4Life to ask about that logo.  You need to register with them and agree to their branding guidelines.  

If you mean the "want to know where to walk" logo or "looking for somewhere to walk" logo then contact us, with some details about what you'd like to use it on! 

Have you got a step converter for walks which aren't already plotted?

Yes we have !  You need to log in, go to "track my progress" and then click the blue ' input your activity button' on the left hand side of the page.

Is it possible to upload walks from a GPS kit?  

No, we are sorry we do not have the funding to provide this facility. 

I uploaded a photo wrong, how can I change it? 

Contact us with details of the walk and we will sort it out for you

What is the connection between Walk4Life and Walking for Health? 

Walking for Health is a national scheme running led walks to encourage people to be more active. Walk4Life offers information and encouragement to be more active, mainly through providing walk information. There are close links between Walk4Life and Walking for Health, but the schemes are run by different organisations.  Also on the Walk4Life website, people can add their own independent walks, track the miles they have walked, and set themselves a target to stay motivated.  

In March 2012 it was announced that Walking for Health will be moving host from Natural England to The Ramblers Association / Macmillan Cancer Support.  This change for Walking for Health doesn't affect this website, Walk4Life, at all.  We will continute to support groups and work with whovever takes on running the project.

Printing problems - help!

If you use Safari or old versions of Internet Explorer you may hove problems printing your maps. The best option in this case is to use another browser, for example Firefox.

In print preview you should still be able to zoom in and out and also scroll the map around so you can get it just as you wish.  You may get a slightly bigger map extract if you ask it to print landscape to your printer rather than portrait.