ICE North West has now opened the 2017/18 Awards for entries.

If you have completed a recent, stunning project – put in an entry and be recognised as the leaders of our industry. There are many categories to allow for all sizes of projects, and also Community and Diversity awards – to recognise companies doing amazing things for society – shaping the world, as all civil engineers do!

Here’s the link; Awards are open!  The Awards dinner will be at the amazing #Titanic Hotel in Liverpool on 9th March Book tickets  here, for a night of networking and recognising the excellence in our region! (We are expecting to sell out, so please book early)

Hope to see you there,

Darrell

The news from Manchester was shocking this morning and there can’t be many that have connections with the city that weren’t shedding a tear today. The stories of parents searching for daughters that are still lost is heart breaking, and must be crushing for those involved. My thoughts go out to them in a time when we all feel a little useless, powerless and confused at how the world creates this scenario.

Manchester will bounce back, and the spirit of this beautiful city will thrive. The city leaders have come together and will work to mend the city. its difficult to imagine how families will get through this, even with support and love.

Please be vigilant where ever you are today and in the future. Don’t hesitate to report incidents that concern you – lost bags, strange activity. Stay safe, and value those around you.

There’s been a lot of comment on the wall failure at Liverpool Lime Street station this week, and I know (from experience) that many have been inconvenienced, and had to cancel plans as the station remains closed.

A major blow for Liverpool, and its residents and businesses – the comment I get most is “”why is it taking so long to fix?”

I have spoken to several rail network engineers this week, and it seems we ‘got off lightly’. It transpires that a third party unknowingly overloaded an adjoining wall, which failed, sending tonnes of debris onto a live track. It was very fortunate that no trains collided with this, and I understand that it was only the focus of one driver that avoided a collision and possible tragedy. Count our blessings….

We are then left with a covered track, and possible legal action. So no wonder that careful assessment of cause and damage levels were required – and this takes time and expertise.

With hindsight, we would only want the line opening when trusted engineers had been able to arrange repairs to damaged rails or sleepers, and surrounding environment. This is not easy work in a confined space, and the engineers must take a view of ‘better safe than sorry’ when assessing elements that need replacement.

Well done and thank you to all the engineers working round the clock to ensure a safe reinstatement!

We all have seen the astonishing, cringe-worthy scenes at the Oscars, where the wrong name was called out. Caused, it seems by a simple mistake of handing the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty.

Anyone who has been involved with the organisation of Awards, can probably have sympathy, and say “we’ve been there”. Obviously not with Warren Beatty, but realising a small unpredicted incident sends you into a tailspin of panic.

I recall 600 guests getting slowly inebriated as we waited for a repair to a projector, that was working during the run through. As was the spare – now with a blown bulb. This meant we had no graphics, and eventually I made the decision to proceed “without technology.”Our host for the evening, the ever-professional (and lovely) Ranvir Singh, carried on as if nothing had happened, and the ever more boisterous crowd didn’t notice…(no surprise Ranvir has gone on to greater things!)

Another Award ceremony featured an expensive, extensive video, featuring highlights et cetera. On the night it crashed half way through. No reason, just refused to play.

So, in the world of ‘live’ events, anything can – and often does- happen. Our ICE North West team are now a little nervous, as we approach our own Awards dinner in Blackpool on 10th March (a few tickets available from ICE website and all good outlets) BUT we have two things in our favour; 1) we have time to check and 2) Warren Beatty couldn’t make it.

The North West of England appears to be in a boom time for infrastructure development and investment with many projects in planning, being built or completed in recent months. The general public’s attention can sometimes be diverted by the discussions about High Speed Rail, although this is far from being ‘shovel ready’ and many important projects are changing the landscape from Crewe to Cumbria.

Many may not have heard of the Mersey Gateway project, if living outside of Liverpool City region. This £600m project is the largest in England, outside of London and is providing a new six-lane suspension toll bridge across the river at Halton. This replaces the iconic Runcorn bridge – which was designed to take 9000 cars a day, and now peaks at 90,000 every 24 hours. This much needed relief scheme has changed the road profiles in the immediate vicinity and has also teamed up with an educational establishment, the Catalyst Centre, to encourage children to get interested in bridge building.

The Alder Hey Children’s Hospital new development has won design awards and will care for more than 275,000 children each year and is the first NHS health park for children in the UK. With an investment of £237m, it provides 270 beds, and incorporated design features suggested by children.

Work continues on the Ordsall Chord development, re-routing rail lines in Manchester City centre. Many of our members worked through the Christmas break on the project so that key work was done at a time where minimum disruption would be incurred. There are also several developments in the city centre, where larger commercial and residential new-builds are taking shape. Examples include the development of the Greengate site near Manchester Cathedral, and the redesign of Peter Square, and it is encouraging to see this level of investment in Manchester, where several years ago the recession stopped all similar projects.

Liverpool Superport has just been completed, which allows the port to accept the largest Container ships – an important step in encouraging shipping lines and importers to use the city rather than the traditional Felixstowe or Southampton destinations. This will bring more goods directly into the North West, avoiding clogging up roads and rail from the south as goods get distributed. Road projects around the region such as the Brooms Cross road, and the extension to the M55 will all add to the ‘efficiency’ and attractiveness of the region, and recent flood damage and flood defence work (particularly in Cumbria and Lancashire) will protect assets. On a local basis, the project to uncover the River Roch, to change the centre of Rochdale was a challenge in working with unknown, historic assets, upgrading the whole feel of the town centre by giving views to the river.

Future projects include the redevelopment of Manchester Airport, to upgrade this important travel hub, and the extensive Smart Motorways project will enable flow of traffic. Further north, new power systems and water supply systems are on the drawing board to enable expansion of all businesses in Cumbria, particularly of benefit to the Nuclear industry’s development plans.

HS2 preparations and planning continue, and many of our Members are involved. We also have ICE Membership representation on the ICE’s Northern Powerhouse Lifed Panel, which will work closely with Transport for the North, to shape thinking, and influence Infrastructure decisions. This is extremely important as we move into ‘Devolved’ times, and ICE is also working with Mayoral candidates and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in the region to offer access to expert engineering knowledge, as ‘we shape the world’ in the North West!

2016 has been a rollercoaster of a year – political changes, economic uncertainty – and yet Infrastructure has never had such a high profile in politics.

With the ongoing ‘Devolution’ debates in the North of England, Infrastructure is high on the agenda, and ICE has been heavily involved in these conversations. Our former President, Sir John Armitt, sits on the National Infrastructure Commission, and ICE’s Policy team is gathering input from all sources to show that ICE Membership should ‘have a voice’ in future decisions. Some of our NW Members represent the region on our Northern Powerhouse Lifed Panel, and will respond to organisations like Transport for the North – to give a voice to Civil Engineers in this process.

We welcomed Sir John to the region in February, where he witnessed the flood damage in Carlisle, and met many Members. Thank you to all of our Volunteers and Members involved in this visit, and we look forward to welcoming Tim Broyd as our new President to Blackpool in March. I hope that you will be able to find time to join us for any part of the visit.

It’s sometimes easy to lose focus on the very positive state of Civil Engineering during the year. The pipeline of projects is as healthy as it has been for many years, with many organisations planning for expansion. ICE Membership is increasing, nationally and in the North West. ICE Committee’s organised over 100 events for you in 2016, which is an incredible array of technical and educational knowledge that you can access, usually for free. Thank you to the many people that helped organise and attended these events, as well as the many volunteers that help to visit schools, colleges or our Bridge at the Catalyst Centre in Widnes, to encourage the future generations of Engineers!

 ICE will only thrive by engaging with our Members, so please contact myself or your local Branch if you have any comments or suggestions, on how we can improve and stay relevant to supporting you as a Civil Engineer.

Have a wonderfully festive break with your families and loved ones, and I look forward to 2017. Whether we get a rollercoaster or a smooth ride, time will tell….

Darrell

The government has just released the Infrastructure pipeline; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-2016

Plenty there – £425 billion in value, over 600 projects. We need more engineers!

They say never meet your heroes, and the 1966 World Cup Final introduced me to my first footballing hero.  I was lucky enough to sit next to Sir Geoff Hurst at the #BEAwards2016 and he was a star!

I texted jealous West Ham-supporting mates, and got the obligatory Selfie (below) and thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Sir Geoff told many footy related stories, about fellow players, World Cups, and of course THAT goal. Did it cross the line? Sir Geoff revealed that the German keeper blocked his view, but he trusted the instinctive reaction of Roger Hunt, who had the best view in the ground…good enough for me!

A fun evening, and some great winners of the Awards – not least Carillion for their superb extension to Anfield Stadium.

Sir Geoff and a star struck fan…

In this world where we have many celebrations and ‘days’ to raise the profile of aspects of our life, it struck me that we don’t celebrate engineers as much as we should? (I myself got married on “International talk-like-a-pirate day” – yes it exists!).

So, we end up forgetting about people that had an immense impact on our modern world. Take the civil engineer Bazalgette (pronounced like Basil Jet apparently). Not a world renowned figure? He designed and installed London’s waste system in Victorian times, moving dirty, disease-ridden water safely away from the populous, and is widely considered to have achieved much for the health of the modern world as his systems were copied and life expectancy increased. Some say Bazalgette did more for public health than many in the medical profession of the time.

Do we celebrate him? Do we give thanks every time we use the loo?

Please start a trend and tomorrow, when you go to brush your teeth and clean water comes out of the tap, stand back and applaud, for the unknown, unrecognised engineers that deliver this miraculous service!

The North of England Local Enterprise Partnerships have been supported by Chancellor Phillip Hammond today, with a boost of £556m, against a backdrop of slower economic growth forecasts.

Also of interest in the Statement was investment in Infrastructure, Roads and Housebuilding – all good news for the construction sector, linked with the Corporation tax cuts for business.

A small amount (relatively!) of £220m was set aside for ‘traffic pinch-points’ and it will be interesting to see how this is allocated and subsequently used? We all have our least-favourite route that needs investment, (thanks for asking – mine is the woefully inadequate A550 into Wales from M53 to A55) but this is  not a huge amount of money?

The investment in 40,000 affordable houses is good news, and I await views on how Planning is tackled, if these are to be built quickly. I would also like to see some incentives for radical new schemes for affordable housing – some great ‘plug-and-play’ designs are around – and these create housing quickly.