News

Technical Director Louise Dow, works from Wardell Armstrong’s Cardiff office in the Ground Engineering Team. For International Women in Engineering Day 2017, Louise gives us a brief career history to date, as well as a project overview on a recent project that she has worked on.

As a Chartered Geologist and UK Registered Ground Engineering Professional, over the past 14 years I’ve gained a variety of experience within the fields of geo-environmental and geotechnical engineering and engineering geology within the construction, energy and environmental sectors.

Senior Environmental Scientist, Rosie Pitt works in our Cardiff office within our Noise and Acoustics team. For International Women in Engineering Day 2017, she gives a brief description of a recent project that she has worked on in Cardiff.

Wardell Armstrong has been involved in the Housing Partnership Programme (HPP), working on several housing projects across Cardiff in multiple disciplines. I hold a diploma in acoustics and noise control, and produced a noise and vibration assessments for many of these projects, in particular, the Walker House development.

Senior Civil Engineer Ann Presley works in our Stoke-on-Trent office. For International Women in Engineering Day 2017, she tells us how the influence and acceptance from a school teacher encouraged her to choose a career in engineering.

Growing up in the USA (the Deep South) I always had the sense that men had their own professional roles and women had very different professional roles. My mother was a nurse and my father was a machinist for an oil rig. My parents reiterated these distinct roles when I was in school, encouraging me to pursue dance, cheerleading, and home economics classes. Whereas, I was more interested in physics, chemistry, and engineering.

As an Associate Director at our Stoke-on-Trent office, Naomi Lee works as part of our Geotechnical Team. For International Women in Engineering Day 2017, she outlines a brief career history and talks about a notable mining project in Kyrgyzstan whilst working at Wardell Armstrong.

I joined Wardell Armstrong in 2004 as a keen young mining geologist. I arrived with a years’ experience from a previous mining consultancy firm based in the West Midlands, and dust on my shoes from 6 months backpacking around New Zealand and Australia. I had a 2:1 in geology and a MSc from Camborne School of Mines and was eager to get stuck in and get some site experience on geotechnical projects.

Briefing note by Susan Raine, Senior EIA Co-ordinator

Following the amendment to the EU EIA Directive in 2014, the new Town and Country Planning (EIA) (England) Regulations 2017 have now come into force, as of the 16th May 2017.

The key changes that you need to be aware of are set out below.

The Wardell Armstrong Carlisle office has made the move to new accommodation, specifically prepared for the type of work undertaken by our team of archaeologists which includes improved sampling and testing facilities combined with technical office space. The move comes in advance of a number of significant new contracts commencing, including the East Anglia One cable route archaeological mitigation contract and an Environmental Testing contract in Northern Ireland. This move follows the addition of Central Manchester and Glasgow offices to the Wardell Armstrong office network last year.

In 2011, UK public water supplies provided 62.79m³ per inhabitant of water, of which 27% was used for commercial use and rest for domestic . Of the commercial water used 57% was used for services, 32% for industry and construction and 11% for agriculture, forestry and fishing (and often the use of water in the latter two sectors gets overlook).

Household water consumption requires the abstraction of water and treatment of that water to a high quality standard for human consumption. For certain domestic purposes (e.g. toilet flushing) this standard of water treatment is not required resulting in unnecessary wastage of water resources and energy.

In the UK, the average water use per person per day is already less than many of our closest European neighbours. The wastewater derived from this consumption is disposed of as either blackwater (derived from sewerage) or greywater (derived from plugholes, washing machines and drainpipes) first to treatment units and then to the environment.

We are delighted to have won the Geotechnical BIM – Workflows and Collaboration Award at this year’s Keynetix Geotechnical Data Management Awards in Oxford on Monday 28th November.

The awards give recognition to organisations that use geotechnical data management within their services and have implemented new techniques or processes using Keynetix software. With 2016 being the year of BIM, the Geotechnical BIM – Workflows and Collaboration Award, was judged on the best implementation of the Geotechnical BIM principles on a project and the workflows and collaboration within the project team.

Wardell Armstrong Environmental Scientist, Eleanor Reed recently presented research from Bangor University to an audience of 140 delegates at the annual British Society of Soil ScienceMeeting held at Reading University in September 2016.

The presentation provided a summary of a year-long agronomic field trial, in which Eleanor studied the impact of the application of biochar or wood ash on soil quality and crop productivity, together with a lab incubation study to assess the mineralisation effect of these two substrates on native Soil Organic Matter.