Metrication Board - Winding Up of The Board

Winding Up of The Board

Following the 1979 general election and another change of government, Sally Oppenheim, described by the last director of the Metrication Board, Jim Humble, as having "been almost the lone but persistent critic of the metric programme" was appointed Minister of State for Consumer Affairs. On 14 November 1979, six months after her appointment, she announced that no more statutory orders would be made regarding metrication – continued progress would be on a voluntary basis. The following year the Metrication Board was wound up, one of the 457 Quangos that were wound up in the “Quango bonfire” of 1979–81.

The author of the final report of the Metrication Board wrote "Today metric units are used in many important areas of British life – including education; agriculture; construction; industrial materials; much of manufacturing; the wholesaling of petrol, milk, cheese and textiles; fatstock markets and many port fish auctions, nearly all the principal prepacked foods; posts and telecommunications: most freight and customs tariffs; all new and revised Ordnance Survey maps; and athletics. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, Britain is far from being wholly metric." The report identified major areas that had not yet been metricated as being the retail petrol trade (metricated early 1980s), retail sale of loose goods (metricated in 2000) and road signs (as of 2012 not metricated).