MAJOR development work is under way at the Southampton head office of Ordnance Survey in Maybush.

This comes as OS celebrates winning a £750,000 contract to provide technical assistance to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia.

Construction has now started on a state-of-the-art exhibition and conference facilities at the huge OS base in the city.

The £1.5 million project, which includes a 150-seat lecture theatre, two conference and three training rooms, a multi-media area and an advanced computerised mapping demonstration area, is due to open next June.

The agency's acting director-general, David Willey, donned overalls to inaugurate the work, by contractor EBC Constructions, by lifting the first floor slabs within the building being converted to house the new facilities.

"We have many hundreds of visitors a year, so this is a very important investment, with benefits for both staff and visitors to Ordnance Survey,'' said Mr Willey.

"We are renowned worldwide for being at the forefront of mapping technology and I am certainly looking forward to seeing it demonstrated in a hi-tech environment on the very latest equipment.''

Under the contract with Macedonia, Britain's national map-maker is teaming up with another civil service agency, Registers of Scotland, together with the Royal Agricultural College in Circencester and LAPECO Ltd from Gloucestershire. After a similar assignment completed by OS last year, this contract, funded by the European Union, requires the mapping agency and its partners to develop further the land registration systems in Macedonia.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.