17 Oct 2016 British mountains could be
downgraded to hills says the Ordnance Survey
You may have seen the above headline in many leading
newspapers recently claiming that Thack Moor and Mynydd Graig Goch will have
only a brief moment of fame before they are demoted. The Ordnance
Survey is quoted as saying they are going to move the Newlyn Datum (the Sea
Level from which all heights are measured) because of rising sea levels.
Well are they? No most definitely not the OS
Press Office tells me. It would mean that every contour on every map at
all scales would have to be redrawn from scratch. After all you can't just
re-label the existing contours on all the maps - "Please note that the 600m
contour is actually 599m". OS say it would take them about ten years to
complete and by the time they finished they'd have to start all over again.
Still there's a plus side to this story. It
keeps mountains in the news and that can't be a bad thing!