Cardiff International White Water Centre

I was kindly invited by the Chairman to dust off my tux and attend the Civil Engineering Contractor’s Association (CECA) Wales dinner last Friday. Before the dinner, I got the chance to meet the top table guests with Alun and to have a good talk to the Griffiths Contracting staff before taking a seat with them. The old cliché is that Contractor’s events are a bit more raucous than others and I suppose the CECA dinner to a degree didn’t disappoint. Howard Mark’s after dinner speech was certainly controversial but a welsh male voice choir tempered the mood perfectly. The speeches covered the difficulties of the economic climate and challenge ahead of government spending cutbacks, but also presented a positive message of successes during the year.

ICE Wales Cymru had a ‘school trip’ this week. As a change from evening lectures in the Trevithick we had a site visit to the newly completed Cardiff International White Water Rafting Centre in the Cardiff Bay Sports Village.

The first thing that struck me from the Simon Howell’s presentation was how good a job the Harbour Authority he manages are doing. The regeneration of the Bay has been a huge success and as a result the Authority was able to fund a substantial amount of the Centre from savings. Simon went into detail on the design and construction of the Centre. The Centre’s reservoir, surrounded by a steel pile wall, enables careful monitoring of water quality (purged from the River Ely) which maximises the days the Centre is operational. At a cost of around £13m, you have to say it was good value when you compare it to the English equivalent currently under construction which has a 50m longer course but is costing three times as much. Combined with the new other developments coming through, the Sports Village is really starting to take shape. It’ll be interesting to see where it is in another five years from now.

Some photos below from the visit showing the course with and without the water pumping, plus the elevator to transport you and your boat back to the top. Sadly, we didn’t get the opportunity to test it out!

New Zealand in 3000km, 2 weeks..and 1 Mouse.

After an exodus of colleagues I’d been dying to see for myself what New Zealand was really like. A friend’s wedding in Sydney was the perfect excuse to tag on a couple of weeks campervanning it round NZ with my wife Emily.

We’d been to Sydney before so steered clear of the usual tourist spots, but the harbour bridge and opera house never fail to impress. This time we decided to try out the train connection to the CBD from the airport rather than getting a cab. The service was perfectly timed, cheap and very user friendly. Double decker trains were an interesting novelty and made me wonder what the pro’s and con’s are of this? Less carriage length per passenger obviously but surely the trains less aerodynamic? I’d never seen this before anywhere else.



My first ever Jewish wedding came and went (if you’ve never been to one they’re an experience in themselves!), and we swiftly flew on to Auckland, beginning our road trip through Rotorua, Lake Taupo and Wellington in the North Island, then the interislander ferry to Picton and then on to Kaikora, Franz Josef, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Dunedin and finally Christchurch. Phew! Campervans are the best way to see this place. A theory confirmed by the number you see on the road, and the number of excellent camp sites on offer. Free camping by the side of the road is always an option to keep costs down, although after a mouse spending the night keeping us awake running round our van we stuck to the pay sites!

Overall New Zealand’s countryside struck me as being similar to Wales, but at an extreme scale. The vastness of the landscape was sometimes difficult to comprehend. A waterfall that seemed close was infact 9km away. I don’t know what I was expecting of the towns and cities, but they surprised me in how American they were in style. Cities were set on the Jefferson grid layout and the small town’s main streets had more than a striking resemblance to something out of a western cowboy movie. The roads connecting them were 99% single carriageway, with dualled sections only sited near the largest of cities of Auckland and Christchurch. Generally the road surfacing quality was high, but some of the sight lines over hogs must have been less than DMRB desirable, even at the 100kph speed limit and from my camper’s elevated driving position.

New Zealand’s ‘style’ was undoubtedly relaxed. The minimal H&S training you needed to jump out of plane at 12,000ft or climb through crevices of a glacier struck me as something you would have to go a decade or two back in the UK to be allowed. Other things from infrastructure through to marketing also reminded me of where the UK was years ago. The massive opportunities for Engineers to emigrate and work in NZ shows that the country is moving on, and I bet there’s plenty of interesting work to be done out there. It’ll be interesting to see how the place develops over the next decade.







Then it was back to good old Wales just in time to go to the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation Annual Dinner with my Halcrow lot. Despite the jet lag it was a great evening.

The Waste Conference

I attended my first ICE Wales Cymru conference last week on ‘Waste’. ICE tested out a new ‘event management’ company using some gadgets such as plasma TV’s instead of an overhead projector. They definitely made a good impression on the 100 strong audience as all the speakers presentations went really smoothly and looked highly professional.

Another first for this conference was that it was paperless. Delegate packs etc were all uploaded to a website beforehand which not only saves a massive amount of paper, it also makes the info easily accessible from anywhere. The same website will later host all of the presentation slides for delegates to revisit. Everyone I spoke to couldn’t find fault in the paperless system and it sounds like this may be carried on into other conferences.

ICE Wales Cymru were again lucky to receive support from Jane Davidson AM, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, who gave the Keynote address. She talked of ‘One Wales, One Planet’, the new directive to get our footprint down to ‘one world’ equivalent level rather the around the ‘3 worlds’ we currently do. This links back to the 2020 and 2050 carbon emission targets that formed part of the last ICE ‘State of the Nation’ Launch on Low Carbon Infrastructure.

Here’s some photos from the event. Me with the Chairman, Director plus Jane Davidson and Phil Butler, Chairman of the ICE Waste Board, then a few others of the event underway:



Others events recently were the evening lecture on the LNG pipeline construction. Some interesting and funny stories from, Nigel Bevan the Project Manager for National Grid. The scale of the project was absolutely immense so it’s an incredible achievement. This morning there was a Business Breakfast on the ‘Remedies Directive’ – basically changes in tendering legislation to make things fairer and more transparent, which can’t be a bad thing. As always, a marvellous fry-up was served whilst you gained CPD. Awesome!

Getting from A to B - Sustainably?

Happy New Year to all you people out there in blogland. Now that the snow’s cleared ICE Wales Cymru meetings and events were all kicking back off this week. We had; an evening lecture on Monday, the start of the 2010 written assignment group on Wednesday in Bay Chambers (hopefully getting me that little bit more prepared for professional review!) and a twice rescheduled ICE Wales Cymru Executive Board to look forward to next Monday.

Monday’s lecture on ‘Sustainable Transport in Wales’, held in Cardiff University, saw some controversial proposals presented by Neil Anderson (no not Neo from the Matrix before you think it) on how engineers, government and society all need to change in order that we get a truly sustainable transport system. I was somewhat cynical of the speaker’s personal interests in light rail when he vehemently criticised road developments in Wales as well as bus systems, but ideas he presented on de-centralising transportation networks were very interesting. It was suggested that instead of every form of transport linking in the city centre and radiating out, that intercity transport terminated at the periphery and then linked into a light rail network to quickly link people to their destination.

Fully integrated mixed mode transport systems surely have to be the way to go. Easier said than done, but I’m sure the bus and train companies will tell you they already go to lengths to try and achieve this. To get the public onto public transport information is key. Knowing exactly when the next train or bus is coming helps travellers make informed choices and save wasted time. Display screens in bus stops and train departure boards in public buildings are the start of that, and the wider availability of internet connection on mobile phones is now allowing people to get this info instantly. This is one step towards integrated transport (be it made up of public with some private in the mix), which is surely a step towards sustainable transport.

Carbon credits were also discussed in the lecture. How long before we get a ration of ‘carbon’ and have to choose between our New York city break or taking our car to work instead of the bus? Could this realistically be enforced? Perhaps. On a more realistic basis the cost of fuel duty/air flight duty will inevitably rise far beyond current levels to make leaner use of remaining fossil fuels until the technological breakthrough we’re all waiting for arrives. Or has it already been achieved and the oil companies are waiting until the black stuff really does run low before handing it over to us. Conspiracy theories abound…..

Talking to Neil, a kiwi, after his lecture I managed to get some good tips on what to see in New Zealand when I drive a camper van from Auckland in the North to Christchurch in the South next month with my wife Emily. To justify my carbon footprint for the trip I’ll report on how sustainable and integrated their transport system is. Can’t wait!

Pieces of the Puzzle….

A stack of events this week:
- Brunel to Broadband evening lecture
- The ‘Halcrow Studio’ opened in Cardiff Uni’s Engineering building
- Social Sustainability business breakfast
- ICE Exec Board Xmas dinner
Plenty of free grub but they’ve also given me food for thought on some of the big issues that’ll challenge Civil Engineers in the future……

Monday’s lecture on IT in Civil Engineering presented interesting theories for the way design and construction teams will work in the future. Tony Sudworth suggested communication and collaborative working tools similar to facebook and Wikipedia will become the norm for business applications, and discussed the concept of truly remote teams with instant access to central projects. The Halcrow Studio (a section my company have sponsored in the refurbished Trevithick Library) was officially opened on the same night and I called in with Alun to take a look. Here's some photos:





The social sustainability breakfast meeting (awesome fry up in the Novotel btw) drew up some heated debate between the Assembly’s top procurement guru and the Director of CECA (representing Welsh Contractors) on how industry and government could/should be driving change in social sustainability issues through the economic downturn. This linked to unemployment, investment and education. Interesting to hear that 22% of welsh people do ‘civil’ work (employed by government), and that doesn’t include those employed by money the government spends. Gareth Morgan from the Assembly suggested industry needs to innovate to reduce dependency on state money, and drive an economy of its own. A big challenge but I can see the point. Industry needs to adapt and generate a skill/service that we can export outside of Wales.

Thursday was the Halcrow Christmas party in the Yard at lunchtime. I stayed on the shandies (as much as possible) to try and save myself for the ICE Exec Board dinner Mr Grif held later on at the uber posh Walnut Tree restaurant in Abergavenny. It was worth saving myself for as the food and drink was just about as good as it gets. Awesome night and a nice opportunity to get to know the Board members on a more personal level. Alun’s hospitality and company was, as always, fantastic. I didn’t go for the sweetbread starter though. Yikes!

Sloped into the office the next day nursing a hangover, and ended up had a good long chat with Barrie (my Halcrow Regional Director) about what I’d been up to lately. Barrie’s always enthusiastic to get us young ‘uns thinking about innovative subjects, and after talking through all the above we came up with some fresh ideas which we’re going to work on – The concept is tackling sustainability, using links between academia/industry/the Institution and Government and implementing innovative communication methods and aligning with the goals of ICE (look back at the ICE State of the Nation Report on Low Carbon Infrastructure), government, academia, industry, society and so on and so on. Centred around utilising the Studio and maybe in the future integrating with the WATT Centre (if you don’t know about the WATT centre, it’s an idea currently being working on for Wales, Think of it as going to be an advanced Techniquest for Civil Engineering). This all made me feel like there’s a load of big jigsaw pieces in front of us, and we just need to shuffle them round and make them work. Hmmmm…….thinking caps on…….

I think this’ll be me last post of 2009 so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all. Thanks for reading

Meetings and Lectures - but no Tequilas......

I’ve had a busy time this week. Tuesday saw my first Committee meeting at Bay Chambers and I somehow got roped into taking the minutes! As scary as that first sounded it turned out to be a good way to learn everyone’s name, plus it made sure I kept track of everything that was going on (just!).

Wednesday night was the ‘Menelaus’ lecture and dinner. A prestigious annual event that this year also celebrated 25 years of WISE (Women in Science and Engineering). The lecture on development of 'silent' aircraft was very different to the civil enginnering topics we normally see. Professer Dame Anne Dowling's use of contraptions made from hairdryers and vacuum cleaners to demonstrate noise sources similar to aviation was great for helping understand the problems, but also made me chuckle at the irony of domestic appliances at a WISE event!

Here's the result of the research - a new style of plane. The big differences are the engines on top of the aircraft, plus its unusual shape. Will easyjet be taking you over to Kos in something like this soon? Maybe! Or at least something incorporating aspects of the tech?



The dinner afterwards at Aberdare Hall (that red brick building at the end of park place) had a great atmosphere. Mr G, some of the ICE Wales Committee members and I all had a chat with Peter Hansford (the next ICE President) over drinks before dinner. I had also met Peter at the State of the Nation Launch at OGGS the other week, and both times found him to be a very friendly guy and easy to chat to.

At dinner I was sat next to Keith Thomas, who I found out used to be Director for Transportation at what is now Transport Wales, and is now ICE Wales' Panel Member for Historical Works. His knowledge of transportation history in Wales was fascinating, as were his opinions on current big issues such as the need for an M4 relief road. Not only that, he was actually quite a good laugh!

Here's one of those embaressing after dinner photos of (left to right): Margaret Everson (Hon. Secretary CILT Cymru), Gemma Hancock (Chairman of ICE Graduates and Students Committee), Keith and me:



Thursday was the G&S Committee Xmas meeting at Las Iguanas. Unfortunately a cold I'd been struggling with all week finally got the best of me so I had to spend the night on the sofa watching 'I'm a Celeb' rather than hitting the fajitas and tequilas with Gemma's crowd. A shame as I was looking forward to getting to know the fine people of G&S better. I'll definitely be at the next one!

State of the Nation Launch - Wales

Following on from the national State of the Nation launch, 26th November was Wales’ turn and I have to say - our version did us proud. Firstly Mr G addressed us on the critical messages of the ‘Low Carbon Infrastructure’ report, aimed at helping us meet the tough emission targets government has set. Basically that:

- Government needs to create and environment to make lifecycle carbon impact of infrastructure key to decision making.
- Infrastructure managers need to develop carbon efficiency.
- Us Engineers must be more systematic in considering carbon impact when we design and deliver infrastructure.

Wales has set itself even tougher standards than the rest of the UK and, stood in the Senedd’s ‘Oriel’ Gallery, you couldn’t help but get inspired to achieve them. One of the main reasons for the success of our launch was the support of Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing Jane Davidson AM. In accepting the report she was extremely complimentary of ICE’s work both informing Government and driving forward change in industry and society.

Another theme of the report was making low carbon behaviour the norm, and discussing how people will have to adapt to achieve an 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050. It makes you think – what is going to have to change to achieve that? Mass electrification of vehicles is going through some serious tests right now, so Engineers need to be on hand to develop the supporting infrastructure and facilitate the critical ‘greening of the grid’. One of the coolest ideas on the table is ‘inductive charging’, where your vehicle is charged ‘on-the-go’ by a system implanted in the road. It might be a serious proposition for larger built up areas (and removes the need for massive batteries). The big decisions between which systems we choose have an air of ‘VHS v Betamax’ about them, so there’s some serious challenges ahead for Engineers to make sure our eggs go in the right baskets…..

You can see the full report and the Wales briefing note here: http://www.ice.org.uk/state_of_the_nation/index.asp

A couple of photos from the event, taken by a very professional photographer with one of those huge lenses!:

Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing Jane Davidson AM:



ICE Wales Cymru Chairman, Alun Griffths and I: