About GM Surveys Ltd

In The Beginning

GM Surveys began in 1986 when, after spending 11 years with Bovis Homes' land survey department, Geoff May decided to set up a small company dedicated to local developers and architects. Back in those days surveying technology was still emerging and the complex software and field instruments we use today did not feature in many surveyors wildest dreams. Our most advanced instrumentin 1986 was a Wild T2 theodolite with a bolt on 'Benchmark' EDM unit sitting on top. Levels, horizontal distances and co-ordinates were all computed using a simple calculator and most of the plotting was done by hand with a scale rule and compass rose.

It all seemed great fun at the time and we seemed to get a great deal of satisfaction out of producing hand drawn plans from scratch. I always got a 'kick' out of spending a couple of hours sitting in the car at the start of the day calculating curve data for a length of road then standing back at the end of the day to see that sweet line of pegs forming a perfect curve stretching towards the horizon.

However, with the pressures of seemingly impossible time deadlines combined with the increasing amount of information required by our clients today it would be a brave (or perhaps insane) surveyor who would consider using those methods today.

Two years after forming, GM Surveys was hit by a recession in 1988 which almost finished the company before it had time to get going. Geoff decided to take a gamble and borrowed as much as the bank manager would allow to invest in a Pentax Total Station, a computer and some software. Shortly afterwards a data logger was added and before we knew it the work started flooding in. New methods were adopted to improve efficiency, enabling us to complete more contracts in less time.

Towards The Future

The equipment manufacturers and software developers continue to amaze us with their ingenuity and, thanks to them, surveyors can produce an incredible amount of quality work in a relatively short period of time. At GM Surveys our investment in equipment did not stop at the Pentax instrument of the early days. We now posess two Trimble Robotic Total Stations, a Trimble R8-2 VRS GNSS reciever,and software including Terramodel, AutoCAD LT, Latimer CAD Distoplan building survey software, and Photoplan rectification software.

We have remained a small company through choice but our ideas and quality of product compare with many large survey companies.

A vast amount of experience has been gained since our formation in 1986 and we are dedicated to a continued improvement of our methods. Our in house quality control has been tried and tested over many years and is reviewed at regular intervals. If you would like to know more about our QC and methodology please look around this web site or contact us.