Integrated Transport and Peter Hansford...

Peter Hansford, ICE’s next President, is visiting us at ICE Wales Cymru this week. His visit started yesterday evening when he met us over dinner. Peter and I had a good talk about the Apprentice role and he was very supportive of my ideas to promote the use of OGGS by members. With the purchase of 8 Storeys Gate Peter told me there’s going to be some available space at OGGS for new facilities. A great opportunity to get members more involved with the building and Institution. We discussed how these new facilities could be used to make OGGS a ‘drop-in centre’ – maybe with something along the lines of a lounge/coffee shop/informal work and meeting space. Hopefully ICE will consult us on the options for the development. I’m looking forward to having a better look around OGGS next month.
Today we had the ICE Wales Cymru Integrated Transport conference. There was a full programme of good speakers and my company, Halcrow, was the lead sponsor of the event so I was split between manning the two stands in the breaks!

The Chairman and I at the Integrated Transportation conference:


Peter Handsford addressing the conference:


Here's me with my ICE hat on (not literally!) giving a member some advice on how he could go for the Fellowship grade:


The final session of the day was ‘Politicians meet the Professionals’ with a panel including the Deputy First Minister Ieaun Wyn Jones. The subject of Transportation proved as emotive and complex as ever, but some interesting debate was stimulated. I was very luck to get the chance to meet with the Minister and he kindly posed for a photo on the Halcrow stand (pictures by Betina Skovbro photography www.skovbro.com). Halcrow sponsor the conference and our theme this year was sustainability, to reflect how high this issue is on our agenda in relation to transport projects: