HC Deb 11 June 1993 vol 226 cc356-7W
Mr. Redmond

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will list by location the Ordnance Survey triangulation pillars that are still waiting to be adopted;

(2) what criteria he has laid down before organisations and members of the public can adopt Ordnance Survey triangulation pillars; how they go about adopting them; what is the cost of adoption per pillar; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Baldry

Responsibility for this subject has been delegated to the executive agency. I have asked Professor Rhind, chief executive for Ordnance Survey, to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Professor David Rhind to Mr. Martin Redmond, dated 9 June 1993: I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Questions about the Ordnance Survey scheme for adopting triangulation (trig) pillars. The criteria we have adopted, providing the landowner's agreement can be obtained, are:

  • the first person or organisation to lodge an application for the adoption of a particular pillar will be permitted to do so, subject to various conditions (see below);
  • the applicant must agree to the terms of a Code of Practice drawn up for the purpose (copy enclosed);
  • the applicant must sign a memorandum of agreement with both Ordnance Survey and the landowner (copy enclosed).

Anyone wishing to adopt a particular trig pillar simply has to write to Ordnance Survey registering an interest. Ordnance Survey will respond enclosing a copy of "Guide to Adopting a Trig Pillar" (copy enclosed) and, on receipt of the applicant's confirmation of a wish to proceed, will initiate action to obtain the landowner's agreement, leading to the signing of the memorandum of agreement. Although Ordnance Survey incurs some administration cost, the process is free to the applicant. When I wrote to you on 27 October 1992 the scheme had only recently been introduced. It is proving to be quite time-consuming to make the necessary arrangements with both landowners and applicants and, at the time of writing, no adoptions have been completed. However, we have made 1,983 provisional allocations (out of a total of 4,904 available) and expect to finalise many of these in the next few weeks. There remain available some 2,920 pillars but this number is reducing slowly on a day-by-day basis. A list of those pillars still available will therefore be a very long one and I should be grateful if you would confirm that you would like a complete listing before I arrange for its preparation.