Our Police Community Support Officer, Arlene Ormston, has sent helpul information on an alternative to map coordinates if you are lost, or want to report an accident or crime.

If you are in a built-up area, it is usually possible to know your location from street signs. However, that is not an option on rural roads or footpaths and bridleways.

If you have a vehicle or hand-held GPS, or a smart phone application, you can find your map coordinates from the device as either Latitude and Longitude or British National Grid reference.

A relatively new alternative for identifying location is What3Words, which is available as a free download on smart ‘phones. What3words divides the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigns each one a unique 3 word address. It means anyone can accurately find any location and share it more quickly, easily and with less ambiguity than any other system. An increasing number of emergency services are using What3words.

https://what3words.com/ or https://map.what3words.com

For example, the location of the war memorial in Chicheley is “sandals.campfires.continued” as shown in the photo.