I managed to work around the empty recordset issue by suppressing both the header and body section that related to the google maps with: -
<?php if ($totalRows_rsmapsearch == 0) { // Show if recordset empty ?> etc etc
and
<?php if ($totalRows_rsmapsearch > 0) { // Show if recordset not empty ?> etc etc
Would be good if this (or no doubt a better solution) could be built into any updates? :)