Masterminding the Met Office move

Work on the building started in 2001

by Jemima Laing
BBC News Online, Plymouth

When most of us move house it is simply a case of filling a few tea chests and sitting back and watching as removal men cart a lorry load of our belongings from one house to the other.

Not so for Met Office relocation director Alan Douglas.

As well as bringing his own family the 171 miles (276 kilometres) from Bracknell in Berkshire to Exeter he is the man responsible for masterminding the move - lock, stock and barrel - of the Met Office's entire operation to the South West.

The project has been described as one of the most complex operational IT moves ever attempted in Europe.

The Met Office The Met Office was formed in 1854 Forecasts were first broadcast on the BBC in 1922 Met Office staffing increased dramatically during World War II The first live TV weather broadcast took place in 1954 The Met Office's base in Bracknell was opened in 1962

And two years of meticulous planning are now coming to fruition as 400 staff take up residence in their new £80m headquarters in Exeter.

Their numbers will be swelled by a further 750 in the next two months.

Monday 15 September 2003 was an historic day as the nation's weather and shipping forecasts, as well as international forecasts, came from Devon for the first time.

Eight lorries a week, carrying 4,000 crates, have been trundling down the M4 to Devon for the last fortnight and will continue to arrive until the beginning of November.

The move will continue until the start of next year when the entire Met Office relocation, save the archive building which is coming next September, will be complete.

Mr Douglas, who is 56, has worked at the Met Office since 1968, six years after its Bracknell base opened.

He said it was during the 1990s that it became clear the operation was outgrowing its Bracknell base.

There were certainly people in the IT world who thought we wouldn't be able to do it Alan Douglas, relocation director

Once the decision was made to move, Norwich, Exeter and two other Thames Valley locations were mooted as possible venues for the relocation.

Planning got under way in earnest once Devon was selected in October 2000 and construction work, which is still ongoing, began at the site in the east of Exeter in 2001.

Liaison also started with the local authority and other agencies to address the logistical problems of managing the movement of the staff and their dependents to the Exeter area.

School places for employees' children and the provision of suitable housing were all issues which had to be considered.

"Our staff have been coming down gradually," said Mr Douglas.

"What we didn't want was a sudden influx of people into the area."

This gradual migration started at the end of 2002 and the staggered approach has minimised the impact of the arrival of an eventual total, by the end of the year, of 1,500 people in a city with a population of about 100,000.

"Not everyone has chosen to live in Exeter itself, there is quite a wide travel to work area amongst the staff," he said.

The process of moving the inhabitants of a number of buildings in Bracknell along with their attendant equipment and, crucially, two super computers hinged on the meticulous planning of Douglas and his 25-strong core team.

"You can never start planning too early for a move like this," he said.

The super computer will help produce more accurate forecasts

"And one day's slip here or there can impact on the rest of the project and the repercussions become enormous," he said.

Two supercomputers are now up and running in Exeter and will be joined by a third at the start of next year, capable of making thousands of millions of calculations every second.

And Mr Douglas concedes there were those who thought the move could not be done.

"There were certainly people in the IT world who thought we wouldn't be able to do it without breaking the service," he said

"We are a 24-hour-a day seven-day-a-week operation, which we have had to maintain during the whole period of the move."

And on top of his professional obligations he has also had to relocate himself, his wife and their two sons, another move completed successfully at the beginning of the year.

Mr Douglas, who is originally from Scotland, says he is delighted to be in Devon.

"It brings us closer to the sort of lifestyle my wife and I are both used to - being around the hills and moorlands."