Do you own an iPhone, Android Smartphone, high-end Nokia or Windows Mobile phone? Then you can help to build-up a real-time map of Southend.

Waze is a social GPS application that has a big following in the US, and is now over here. The idea is simple. Drive around with this app running on your phone, and a map of roads and average road speed is built-up. Users can report speed cameras and accidents (with photos) and share that info with others. Problem is, the map of Southend is a bit thin:

It looks like most of the mapping effort has been done by one ‘HonourableKilla’ – Southend thanks you. So – can the readers of these news pages rise to the challenge and help build up Southend’s map? The Waze service rewards you with road munching points, and bonus points for driving around areas marked with little pink fairy cakes.

Go on – give it a try. If you’ve got an iPhone, go to Waze at iTunes, otherwise Waze is in the Android Market store and in Nokia Ovi. Full details at www.waze.com

Come on gang… get driving!

Google has just rolled out an upgrade to their controversial mapping service. In the Summer of 2009, a special Google car, equipped with state of the art cameras, roamed around Southend taking pictures of our town.

Those images are now live, and by typing an address into maps.google.co.uk , you’ll be able to see and navigate around to see what the cameras picked up.

If you’ve not used the service before – the trick is to type in a street address or postcode into maps.google.co.uk, then drag the little icon of a person from the controller on the left, and drop the person onto the appropriate street. You’re then in a scrollable view of that street and can move around, pan up, turn around and zoom.

Found anything interesting happening in Southend? Let us know below

The underpass underneath the Victoria Shopping Centre is set to close permanently on Sunday the 21st February 2010 (originally the 15th Feb).

Apparently, the closure of the Deeping is to enable a series of “road improvements”, including a programme to replace the Victoria Circus roundabout with a traffic light junction.

The closure of the Deeping will make getting into the town to park at Warrior Square car park much more difficult and undoubtedly put more pressure onto the other town centre junctions. Many will remember the temporary closure of the Deeping in 2006, which caused delays getting into the centre of town for some months.

We’d be interested to hear your views…

Users of the A127 ‘Arterial Road’ into Southend take note… The SPECS Average Speed Camera network is now live (April 2009).

As locals will know, the speed for the stretch of the dual carriageway approaching Southend recently dropped from 70mph down to 50mph, with average speed cameras in place to enforce this limit.

Essential safety solution, or a council money-maker? More discussion on the A127 50mph Speed Limit Protest Group on Facebook.