The Metric Martyrs campaign and the Conservative party say that the European Commission (EC) has agreed to the continuation.

Metric Martyrs campaign director Neil Herron said:

"The public had never wanted or asked for imperial measures to be abolished and no political party had ever put it in their manifesto that they intended to criminalise the use of imperial measures."

A spokesman for EC Industry Commissioner Gunther Verheugen told the BBC that the commissioner intended to propose an amendment allowing the use of imperial measurements alongside metric after 2009, following successful lobbying on the issue.