Letters: North to move?

At a conference recently, I fell in with a member of the Ordnance Survey Research and Development Division. In the course of a conversation on Grid Referencing, she casually mentioned that the O.S. were thinking of changing the direction of North.

At first, I assumed that she was pulling my leg. It turned out that she was serious.

At the moment, O.S. maps show 'true north' which is constant and a 'magnetic north' which varies with successive issues as the planet's magnetic pole moves about. However, all maps are aligned to 'grid north'. This is based upon true north but modified by a formula to adjust for the fact that the United Kingdom is not flat as a board as shown on maps but wrapped around the outside of an oblate spheroid. Now that we are heavily into the E.C., the concept of a modified formula is emerging to align everything to Euro-North. This will certainly sell a lot of maps, but what about the thousands of grid references that we have been stuffing into our publications and databases over the years? Has anyone any more information to add to this somewhat disturbing prospect?

Harry Pearman