Due to work and personal commitments I've been unable to post for a few weeks, however there has been little to report... but I thought now might be a good time for an update!

Moving onto the roads. I'm yet to see the much heralded consultation from the DfT on road signs, but they have launched a consultation entitled "Making Britain's Roads the Safest in the World". I've yet to have a look at this but I'm sure that increased use of metric is something they should be looking at. The consultation closes on July 14th.

Now onto the rest of the country... and the expected changes in EU legislation were published in the Official Journal of the EU yesterday and becomes EU law 20 days later (click here for the journal entry and here for the amendments). There are few surprises there, but the key elements that have been confirmed are:

• Mile, Yard, Foot, Inch - only for "Road traffic signs, distance and speed measurement"
• Pint - Only to "Dispense of draught beer and cider; milk in returnable containers"
• Troy ounce - Only for "Transaction in precious metals"

2. The scope of the directive has changed:

• "The obligations arising under Article 1 relate to measuring instruments used, measurements made and indications of quantity expressed in units of measurement, for economic, public health, public safety or administrative purposes."  

The section marked in italics has been removed, hence the directive now seems to cover ALL use of measurement.

3.  Supplementary indications will be permitted.

The document then says:

Member States shall adopt and publish, no later than 31 December 2009, the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive. They shall forthwith communicate to the Commission the text of those
measures.

They shall apply those measures from 1 January 2010.

When they are adopted by Member States, those measures shall contain a reference to this Directive or shall be accompanied by such reference on the occasion of their official publication. The methods of making such reference shall be laid down by Member States.

So, those of us who want to see metric in use have gained from this. As I've always said, I'm no lawyer, but from what I read from this it means that although we will still be left with imperial road signs and the pint in the pubs, everything else must now be metric - although with supplementary indications. What's more, all of this has to be passed into UK law by the end of this year!

Technically speaking, this does mean that estate agents boards showing "acre", "sq ft", etc. will become illegal unless they show metric units first - so those signs that currently read "2 acres (0.8 ha)" or "1280 sq ft (119 m²)" would be as illegal as those only showing the imperial only quantities. I also believe that it also means that the "12 inch pizza", "footlong sub", "quarterpounder with cheese" and "8 oz steak" would also become illegal, which I personally have no issue with! In fact I was recently at a restaurant in Enfield (Outback Steakhouse) who actually sold their steaks in grams! Not bad for an American chain!

A lot will have to change though... to this day there are still restaurants and bars that price and sell soft drinks by the oz which was supposed to have been banned in 2000 and trading standards offices are reluctant to act unless they see somebody being short changed. Are large chains such as McDonalds, Subway and Pizza Hut going to make the changes required without making a noise? And who will we complain to when Joe Shmo Estate Agent (a name I made up, appologies if there is a real one with this name) can't see past feet and yards? We already see sly tricks like one on TV this week where Morrisons are advertising potatoes at "£1 for 450g" which, in all honesty, is a sly way of saying "£1 per lb" even though they don't use the "lb" word itself on the advert!

More soon...