125-year-old chartered surveying firm goes green with electric vehicle milestone

DM Hall, the chartered surveying firm with a string of offices across central Scotland, has made more than two thirds of its substantial car fleet all electric or hybrid.

Of its 130-strong car fleet, used principally to convey its surveyors to inspect, assess and value residential and commercial properties across Scotland, the firm boasts 28 plug-in hybrid cars and four pure electric vehicles (EVs), with a further 45 hybrids and seven EVs on order.

With 24 offices and more than 250 members of staff including 25 partners, DM Hall has this year been celebrating 125 years since its foundation in 1897. To mark the anniversary, and as a “symbolic investment in the future”, earlier this year the firm undertook the planting of 125 trees in Cashel Forest, a 3,000-acre estate by Loch Lomond which is being transformed with native Scottish species into the “Forest for a Thousand Years”.

DM Hall managing partner John McHugh said: “We are doing all we can as a firm to mark our 125th anniversary this year with a decisive move to becoming a greener business. It is in the nature of our profession that we must be mobile to perform our surveying duties, so the attraction of helping to create a cleaner environment while at the same time reducing our overheads by going green makes an excellent business case for doing right by doing well. A further appeal of running a green car fleet arises from the tax breaks which both colleagues and the firm will enjoy, including lower road tax, more generous benefit in kind rules and greater annual capital allowances.”