Break Free, a new national charity constituted today, is to develop a resource that will provide better information for people visiting the UK countryside.

The charity will provide tourists with detailed, interactive information on their walks to encourage even the most map-illiterate to enjoy their strolls through the great outdoors.

A national conference for countryside user groups and countryside managers will be previewing the designs of the new resource in Newcastle on 28 April.

Bob Campbell, development manager, said: “Break Free will be a information resource that everyone will be using. Walkers, climbers, cyclists, parents with children and people with physical and sensory impairments.”

“In the first phase of the scheme, we will provide ramblers with a small personal device which enables them to see pictures of the sites and possible trouble-spots – narrow gates, fences, ponds – before they arrive at them. They will also be able to upload information that is of interest to them, while leaving out information irrelevant to them,” Campbell said.

Information on the Break Free database will be provided and submitted by a network of countryside management organisations.

Break Free, which is funded by the Heritage Lottery Grant, will provide tourism agencies with the equipment they need to make it easy and time-efficient to update the database.

Campbell said: “By presenting information in this way, Break Free will provide tourists with an un-paralleled holiday planner in the language of their choice.”

Break Free is managed by Stockton Shopmobility and has a steering group of 16 organisations.

The initial trustees have been selected and the full membership to enable today’s constitution was reached on 24 February.