Why the centuries-old Ordnance Survey is still going places

Rumoured to be heading for George Osborne’s sell-off list, the mapping agency has plotted a route through the digital age to remain a unique asset On a housing estate in Southampton, surveyor Alyson Whiting is painstakingly recording the outline of a curved flowerbed. One of a small army of field workers for the Ordnance Survey, she is using a tablet computer wirelessly linked to a satellite antenna atop a long pole – affectionately known among the national mapping agency’s sta