Consulting Arborist Society

CAS

 

Pear Technology are sponsoring the Consulting Arborist Society report writing seminar at Minerva Mill, Alcester on 30th June 2016.
 
We will be available on the day to provide information about our software and give demonstrations.
 
For more information please click here. 

Pear Technology – Press – Celebrating 20 years

Local Company Celebrates 20th Anniversary Milestone!

We are ecstatically proud to announce that last year Hampshire based company, Pear Technology, reached its 20th Anniversary!

Founded in 1995 by John Cowling & quickly becoming licenced partners of Ordnance Survey, the creative business has grown massively into a leading developer & supplier of digital map editing software for land management.

With an expanding customer base and 20 years of knowledge, the Pear Technology team have turned into expert consultants offering specialised software, training & a full map preparation service to get everyone going. The full shebang!

Estates, farms, arboriculturists and council’s nation-wide have enlisted the product as a core land management tool. Over the 20 years, Pear Technology has mapped nearly 2 million hectares of the UK!

To match workload the office has expanded. Holding space in Havant, the company now has more employees than ever, including whizzy placement students and postgraduates from the University of Portsmouth.

Ever growing in presence, most recently the company has seen the launch of a brand new website, www.peartechnology.co.uk. Take a look, or Tweet us @PearTechnology.

This year, with the calendar full of shows, conferences, and client meetings we are  excitedly awaiting all that is to come!

Congratulations Pear Technology, here’s to another 20 years of digital mapping action!

 

Reporter: Lizzy N

Interview with our Software Engineering placement student Sam Davies

The company has grown so much over the last 20 years that in 2014 Pear Technology was able to offer a student work placement. This came in the form of Sam Davies, a Software Engineering student from Portsmouth University; who provided us with extra brain power for new program developments. Read his interview below:

Q. So Sam, what made you decide you would like to apply to take a placement year working at Pear Technology?

A. I wanted to try something new. I’d never worked with anything to do with mapping before and I found this really interesting – it would be cool to work with maps. I also knew that digital mapping would have a visual element instead of the number crunching I had been doing – so this was particularly appealing to me.

Q. Tell us a bit about the work you have done at Pear?

A. I’ve been working on a new software product. It’s exciting seeing it progress so quickly and working out the best way for it to evolve. It brings in visual graphics which is really good fun. I enjoy taking the product from a shell and making it become functional in the best possible way for our customers. I’ve also been heavily involved in finishing off the new website and filling in the gaps to make sure all the content is up there. I am sure that this will go some way to help people who are interested in our products and services. You can’t just chuck it all up there-you have to think about what the customers want to have access to – so it is exciting.

Q. Tell us about your experience working for Pear from your first day to now?

A. Of course it was daunting on my first day! Before I started I wasn’t exactly sure what Pear Technology did – but I know pretty much what Pear is and does now. I initially felt nervous changing my colleagues programming codes. Taking more things on I’ve grown in confidence and now I am fully incorporated within the team. As my knowledge of the business improved it became much easier to communicate, contribute in meetings and manage my projects as well as other people. Everyone has been so helpful. I started with one project, but now I have three which can be a bit of a challenge as you can’t dedicate all of your time to all of the projects, at once. I think I’m spreading my time well across all three of them but we’ll see!

Q. What has been your most challenging task so far?

A. I’d say it’s just not being afraid. It’s important to ask as many questions as you need to really fine tune what is wanted and to be forthcoming enough to propose new ideas. Everyone at Pear is extremely supportive and encouraging – so I quickly learnt it was fine to be brave. Also the website- it is challenging producing something which satisfies the business requirements as well as the customer’s requirement. Someone going onto the website might want to find a certain piece of information, but at the same time we have to present what we do, make sure it’s all easy to read and very accessible as well as being simple to understand. It’s just sitting back and prioritising what is most important which is often quite challenging. I am proud of what we’ve achieved so far.

Q. What are the most important things you have learnt whilst working for the company?

A. I’ve learnt that I’m hard working and dedicated. I put in the extra hours and sometimes even weekends to get things done, so I’m quite tenacious. But on the flip side of that, I’ve also learnt it’s important to know when to take breaks. Sometimes it’s better to put something down and come back to it refocused. Being my first time in a proper company I’ve learnt a lot about how a business operates and how important communication is.

….I suppose I’m not that bad at programming (he giggles). It’s definitely given me more confidence to approach software tasks. I now know that this is something I want to continue to do.

Q. What have you enjoyed the most about Pear Technology?

A. Finally being able to take all the knowledge I’ve been learning at University doing a project for Pear has certainly been satisfying for me. I’d also certainly say the friendliness of everyone, and how easy it is to just turn around and ask somebody for their opinion. I think that that’s what you sometimes lose in a bigger company. We have also had some great days out and there is fun banter within the office which makes it a light atmosphere to come into every day. I really enjoy working at Pear.

Update 2016: Sam is now just about to finish his University degree and has successfully utilized his skills learnt with us by linking his final year project with Pear Technology development. Well done Sam!

Council Land Titles Layer

Council Land Titles Layer

February Council News

Wednesday 3rd February.

Philippa will be at the SLCC South East Regional Roadshow on Wednesday 3rd February at the Bridgewood Manor Hotel in Chatham. Come and talk to her for a demonstration of our mapping software to see how it can help you manage your land, assets, cemeteries, allotments and more.

 

Thursday 25th and Friday 26th February.

Chris will be attending the 10th SLCC Practitioners’ Conference on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th February in Stratford-upon-Avon.

A special Flood Risk Management session has been included in the programme on the Thursday afternoon led by the Flood Resilience Team Leader at the Environment Agency, Kevin Barnes. Come to our stand to see the riparian boundary map Pear Technology put together for Lydney Town Council showing the land ownership around the river Lyd. Lydney Town Council’s work instigating the Lydney Flood Defence meetings helped them to win NALC Council of the Week in 2015 – http://www.nalc.gov.uk/news/entry/372-council-of-the-week-lydney-town-council

 

Other News.

We will be welcoming South Petherton Parish Council as a new customer. South Petherton bought our mapping software after seeing its many uses at Shepton Mallett Town Council.

If you would like a demonstration of our software please call 02392 499689. We are happy to visit your council or to connect to your PC over the internet and provide a quick one-to-one informal demonstration.

Pear Technology 20th Anniversary

Pear Technology 20th LogoWe are ecstatically proud to announce 2015 was a special year for Pear Technology as we celebrated our 20th Anniversary of providing land management software and digital mapping services!

Whether you are an existing or previous client, partner, or indeed someone we just like to keep in touch with, I’d like to give you the largest Thank You for your support and business over the past 20 years and on into the future as we make more developments and take increasing number of orders.

On our journey of GIS development and consultancy, we have become a devoted leading supplier of software and services to nearly 2000 loyal customers.

To our very first clients and to the most recent, your trust in our digital mapping solutions has made the celebration of our 20th Anniversary in 2015 possible! So again-Thank you!

Letter from our Managing Director, Chris Makin

As Managing Director of Pear Technology, I feel very honoured to have been given the opportunity to steer Pear Technology through the next phase of the company’s journey without the guiding light of our founder, John Cowling.

John has now officially retired from the day to day running of the company but his regular attendance at our quarterly operations meetings allows for an exchange of views and provides an arena for some strategic thinking. John has built up twenty years of knowledge about our market place and provides a good sounding board for new ideas and initiatives.

I am pleased to report that Pear enjoyed a very good trading performance for the year ending April 2015. The company posted its best ever sales performance resulting in year on year growth in turnover of 20%. We also added a further 186 new customers to our client base and maintained our relationship with our existing customers via our very personal Technical Support Service. The company was able to take on more staff during the year to support our business operations as well as providing work experience for a number of budding GIS experts still in education.

As with all companies that are pleasant to work with and within it is the people behind the emails and the website who make the difference. Here at Pear, we have a dedicated team of professionals who are prepared to go the extra mile to provide attentive customer support to our existing clients as well as drive long distances to give first hand demonstrations and training to our new and potential customers.

Finally I would like to add my thanks to all our customers for their continued support of our products and services and to all the staff at Pear, both past and present, who make coming to work at Pear a pleasure!

 Kind Regards

Pear Technology Managing Director

Chris Makin

Farm Business Innovation Show 2015 – 11th & 12th November

FBI Banner

Pear Technology are thrilled to announce that they will be exhibiting at the Farm Business & Innovation show on the 11th./12th. November at the NEC  in Birmingham.

The Farm Business & Innovation shows is a large event that keeps Farmers, Land Managers, Glampers, Campers, Estate Owners and all sorts of other people up to date with the latest software, products and services that are available to help them manage their land and assets. It really is a great opportunity to explore avenues that you may have never thought of before and the whole show is an extremely well organised event. An added bonus is the number of useful and interesting seminars which are held throughout the two days which are short, punchy and topical.

Pear will be exhibiting on Stand 442 promoting our mapping software, new available datasets and various types of GPS equipment. We are excited to say that we have a specialist from Leica exhibiting with us who will be demonstrating a new range of devices that Pear will soon be selling. Pear will be introducing a new service which is our very own online ‘MapShop’ which allows customers to purchase OS MasterMap and OS VML data for a user defined area, 24 hours a day.

The show is also a great opportunity to meet some members of the Pear team.  Freddie Ryan, who is managing the Farms and Estate Sector will be attending on both days along with a new colleague, Charlie Farrington, who is based down in the South West and has a strong background in the farming sector. In addition, the managing director Chris Makin, will be in attendance and is looking forward to  meeting all existing and new customers.

We look forward to seeing you at the show.

Admission tickets, which are free, can be obtained by following the link below:-

http://www.eventdata.co.uk/Forms/Default.aspx?FormRef=FBIB5Visitor

Public Rights of Way data now available for the majority of the UK

Public Rights of Way data has recently become much more widely available and Pear Technology are pleased to offer the service of adding this information to your digital map.

Available on various Ordnance Survey raster tiles, Public Rights of Way information previously had to be purchased then painstakingly traced leaving some degree of inaccuracy. It can now be added to your digital map on its own layer, making it much easier to display and edit on your map. In PT-Mapper Pro, one click can tell you how long the footpath is and another can show you the route in Google Earth’s aerial view.

 

Subject to the data availability, we can provide you with a layer for each classification of the Public Rights of Way. These are:

  1. Footpaths – for walking, running or mobility vehicles.
  2. Bridleways – for walking, horse riding, cycling or mobility vehicles.
  3. Restricted Byways – for any transport without a motor and mobility vehicles.
  4. Byways Open to All Traffic (BOAT) – for any kind of transport, including cars but mainly used by walkers, cyclists and horse riders.

 

Landowners have responsibilities for the Rights of Way which fall on their land. Knowing where these routes are is the first step in ensuring compliance with environmental law!

 

Did you know?

  • You are not allowed to grow crops on Public Rights of Way, although grass can be grown for hay and silage.
  • Footpaths and Bridleways may not be ploughed unless they cross fields. Landowners must then supply an access route 1m – 2m wide respectively within 14 days of ploughing.
  • You cannot put up gates or stiles without the local authorities permission.

 

 

 

 

If you would like Public Rights of Way information added to your map simply email info@peartechnology.co.uk or call us on 02392 499689 and we can check availability and provide a quote for the work.

Pear at the CLA Game Fair

Lizzy CLA

RPA – Basic Payments Scheme Deadline

2016 Update: Please note RPA boundaries in a shapefile format are no longer available. 

 

The Current Situation

With the announcement of the Basic Payment Scheme’s (BPS) withdrawal of their online mapping system, farmers are having to resort back to paper maps. Claim submission deadlines have been extended to the 15th June, 2015. However, the RPA have advised farmers to get their claims in as soon as possible  to make sure guidance can be given where needed.

The RPA have been issuing more details on how farmers can claim for the BPS 2015 and have been distributing pre-populated BP5 claim forms to all registered cutomers of the Rural Payments online system.

 

How Pear Can helpLaundry Cottage RPA

Paper maps are fine and a lot of farmers will resort back to this traditional method but it is far too easy to create inaccuracies when using a felt tip on a paper map. PT-Mapper in comparison allows you to accurately update your farm to the nearest cm if needs be giving you realistic and reliable readings for your claims.

The RPA analyse Ordnance Survey MasterMap data, the most up to date and detailed data avaialble from the OS,  to identify boundary amendments. The great benefit of our software is you can purchase the very same MasterMap data to check, identify and adjust your field boundaries to the appropriate position.

In addition to this, you can request your RPA field boundaries directly from the RPA in a ‘shapefile format’, for free.  These files can then be easily imported straight into PT-Mapper showing you your field boundaries as well as any permanent ineligible features (PIF’s). From here you can edit the boundaries to follow the MasterMap data, measure distances yourself for the boundary to follow, use a handheld GPS device to plot points to map to, or link your fields to Google Earth and follow the aerial imagery.

To go one step further you can use our easy-to-use editing tools to create accurate buffer strips around your fields to calculate the exact area being farmed as well as Game Cover and grass margins.

It is time to get your field boundaries up to date and PT-Mapper is the perfect, simple and intuitive replacement to the BPS’ withdrawn system.

 

How to get started

  1. Download a trial of PT-Mapper to see how you like the system. Once you are happy, get in contact with us to purchase a full licence.
  2. Request your RPA shapefiles from the RPA
  3. Send us a plan of your farm so we can provide you with a quote for the Ordnance Survey MasterMap data required.
  4. Use our software to edit your field boundaries and gain precise hectarage for your farm
  5. Print the updated maps and fill in your BP5 form with your accurate, up to date figures and make your claim

 

Related Products

PT Mapper

PT-Mapper is the core application to help manage land and assets through the power of maps. It provides much more than free online mapping services as well as all the key functions of more expensive geographic information systems. PT-Mapper brings together your own data with that of other agencies to allow for more effective and efficient decision making.