YOU can now take a virtual stroll down almost every street in Oxfordshire after search engine Google increased its street maps coverage across the UK.

The Google Street View system, launched in Britain a year ago, offers online visitors the chance to roam around cities on their computer screens.

Oxford was one of 25 cities you could search in the free service, which was launched with coverage of five US cities in May 2007.

But now coverage has been extended across Oxfordshire, with millions of digital photos taken by cameras mounted to the roofs of Google cars, mapping an estimated 95 per cent of streets in the UK.

Chris Rimmer, from Kennington, Oxford, who runs the NO2ID human rights group, which campaigns against ID cards, said: “We think Google Street View is less intrusive than CCTV cameras because they take just a few shots of one location and there is no live feed. They seem to make an effort to blank out car number plates and we don’t think the service really infringes on people’s privacy.”

Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist, said: “The new imagery of so many stunning British places means it’s the ideal time to start planning a trip, kick-start a house hunt, or simply ensure you never arrive late to a meeting again.

“Over two thirds of people who have tried the service said they would use it again.”

Google says it now provides 360-degree street-level imagery of 238,000 miles of public road, and claims there has been a 30 per cent increase in Google maps usage since the service’s launch.

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