There are many webcams situated in the UK, but often they are operational for a limited time so maintaining an accurate list of their locations is difficult. There are a number of online directories and maps that perform this function with dedicated people keeping them up to date. This includes major broadcasters (such as the British Broadcasting Corporation) as well as major UK institutions such as the Met Office. The BBC directory contains webcams collated from a number of sources, including some maintained by the BBC themselves, often situated on top of regional television headquarters.
There are also webcam lists and maps maintained by members of the general public, although often these suffer from data inaccuracy as they do not have the same resources as national institutions. These are often centred on showing current weather conditions for sporting activities such as gliding and surfing, both of which rely heavily on the weather conditions being right for the sport. Recent mapping services - such as Google Maps - have provided the locations of webcams around the UK to be displayed, allowing a progression from HTML webcam maps (such as UK Weather Webcams) to more dynamic Google Maps-based services (such as The UK Webcam Map). The latter allows users to create and edit the content of the website and map, allowing webcam bugs and errors to be reported easily, giving higher accuracy to the service.
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