Selling land by the acre to be banned under new EU ruling

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People in Britain will lose the right to sell land in acres under a new Brussels ruling nodded through by the Government. In a low-key meeting, a junior minister agreed last week to abolish the ancient imperial measurement and replace it with the metric equivalent 'hectare' from 2010. The UK previously had an opt-out, technically known as a 'derogation', from the EU's use of some metric measurements, which allowed the continued use of acres for the pruposes of land registration. But from January 1, 2010, the unit, which dates back to the 13th century, will be banned.

The decision was buried deep within the small print of EU directive 80/181/EEC on agriculture and fisheries and revealed by the Tories. Successive British governments have been under pressure from Brussels to announce a date for phasing out imperial measures altogether, with the latest deadline set for 2009. Last year, however, the European Commission and Parliament announced that it would no longer be seeking their extinction. It followed campaigns by Britons dubbed 'Metric Martyrs' who have fought for years to stop the march of new measurements from Europe. In 2001, Sunderland market trader Steve Thoburn was convicted of selling bananas by the pound. He died in March 2004, aged 39, just days after learning his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights had been rejected. An acre is equal to 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet. A hectare is more than twice the size at about 107,639 square feet. The first law setting out an exact statutory size for the acre was passed under Edward I's reign between 1272 and 1307. The word is derived from the Latin 'ager', from which we also have words like agriculture. Public consultations launched by the commission, which confirmed that allowing imperial measures to be used alongside metric measures would not disrupt trade and commerce - and would help to counter anti-EU sentiments. But loose goods still have to be sold in metric quantities, with imperial measures only allowed to be displayed alongside, rather than instead of, them. No one from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was available for comment. update: In fact the acre is not to be abolished. All that has happened is that, since the UK’s Land Registries have for many years used hectares rather than acres for land registration, it has been agreed that the exemption for acres for this purpose (and this purpose only) is redundant. So the decision is a tidying up measure that makes no practical difference to this or any other uses of the acre. more @ http://www.metricviews.org.uk/2008/07/21/acre-not-abolished/

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news By Michael Lea