ORDNANCE SURVEY TEAM TELLS MEPs: DON´T MESS UP OUR MAPS

12.48.38pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 23rd Feb 2005

A top team from the Ordnance Survey landed in Strasbourg yesterday to persuade Euro-MPs to amend a new euro-law that could put the local Southampton-based map-makers out of business.

The top brass at Ordnance Survey, which is one of the biggest employers in South Hampshire with some 1,200 staff at its Romsey Road site drawn from Eastleigh, Romsey and Southampton, fear that a proposed EU directive could ban revenue-raising from maps and other work.

Hampshire MEP Chris Huhne, pictured here with Ordnance Survey Strategy director Duncan Shiell and Executive director Nick Land of Eurogeographics, which represents mapmakers across europe, hosted a reception to help the Ordnance Survey get its point across.

Mr Shiell told the meeting of MEPs that the current proposal from the Commission had advantages in ensuring that europe´s mapmakers could swap data without problems and benefit european policymakers, but could be interpreted as banning the receipt of cash for cartographic work.

Chris Huhne said: "We need to remove any ambiguity in the wording, as it would be a disaster for the Ordnance Survey if it was not able to charge public authorities and others for its work. The Treasury would certainly not fund the same state-of-the-art investment, and the OS would suffer from the lack of contact with its clients and customers. This commercial link is what has driven it to the frontier of new technologies in spatial mapping for public authorities and others".

Mr Land said that he was worried that the Commission seemed to have an agenda of making map information available for free, which was not realistic as it would dry up an important revenue stream for Ordnance Survey and other EU organisations like it.

Mr Huhne said that this was a cross-party and pan-european issue as many other countries also have survey organisations that fund themselves from trading information for clients.

"If it isn´t broken, don´t fix it" said Mr Huhne. "The OS business model is working well to the benefit of thousands of businesses, ramblers, motorists, home-owners and policy-makers".

Mr Huhne said that the European Parliament committee that was considering the Commission proposal had only just begun its work, but that he was optimistic that the MEPs would introduce substantial changes in the so-called INSPIRE directive.

Mr Shiell also briefed Mr Huhne on the possible move of Ordnance Survey from its Romsey Road site. Tenders have been invited both to refurbish the current site, and to use the current site for other uses while finding an alternative within 5 miles so that staff are not disrupted.

The tenders are due by the end of February, and the OS hopes to make a decision within six months. Mr Huhne, the Lib Dems prospective parliamentary candidate for Eastleigh, pressed the case for a site in the town, which is set to suffer major job losses due to the closure of both Manor Bakeries and the Alstom engineering works.

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