1st October Meeting with ADEPT (Association of Directors of Environment Economy Planning and Transport)

As a former president of ADEPT I was really keen to meet up Neil Gibson President ,Mark Stevens Chair of the Engineering Board and Hannah Bartram their Chief Operating Officer but more importantly as local highway authorities are key stakeholder in our industry. We have a very productive session identify lots of opportunities for close collaboration. Including closer working between ADEPT Boards & CIHT Panels. ADEPT are also leading on Smart Local Highways & AV Live Labs supported by £25m of DfT funding.

5th Ocotober CIHT South Eastern Region Dinner Dance, Guildford

Another great night out this time in Guildford congratulations to South Region Chairman Mark Pemberthy and the Committee in organisation this event. Also well done to Stuart Atkinson in receiveing the CIHT Certificate of Merit. Stuart is current member of CIHT Council and has been a great ambassador for the Institution .This region is one our largest in terms of membership and is really important to the UK’s economy. Being back in Guildford was another trip down memory lane for me as I worked in the city as a sandwisch course trainee civil engineer for the South East Road Constrcution Unit  Surrey sub Unit back in the 1970’s on the design of the M25. 

8th October AECOM Infrastructure Dinner & Round Table Discussion: the truth about what is still holding us back

This was another opportunity to raise CIHT profile at a high level round table discussion with representatives from major infrastructure projects including Crossrail, HS2, Heathrow Airport expansion, Thames plus industry bodies ACE, CECA. Photo below shows myself with Martin Tugwell in his capacity as Programme Director with England’s Economic Heartland and former NCE & Infrastructure Intelligence editor Anthony Oliver who chaired the event. The discussion focused on the following:

• Setting up projects for success
• Embracing an integrated approach across the life cycle of an asset
• Understanding the cost of asset ownership
• Using technology to unlock the power of integrated delivery
• Leveraging asset intelligence

AECOM are planning to produce a report early next year based on the outcome from the discussions.

11th October President’s reception and dinner of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE), ICE, George Street

The light of CIHT’s presence in Hong Kong we have an active branch of with over 600 members I was keen to support this event. The new president of HKIE Ir Ringo YU Shek Man gave an excellent presentation about what he called the 4th industrial revolution about the impact of technological innovation and the need to ensure that future engineers had the right skills to embrace these new technologies. I made some useful contacts which in preparation to my visit to my presidential visit to Hong Kong next year.

12th – 15th October Short break to see my daughter Isabelle in Ibiza

It was nice to take a long weekend break in my busy Presidential schedule to see my daughter Isabelle who is a primary school teacher at an international school on Ibiza. It was lovely to see her and enjoy the mild autumn weather of 25 degrees so managed to enjoy a dip in Mediterranean Sea.

16th October - Governance Review, Britannia Walk18th October - CIHT North East & Cumbria Region Site Visit, Dinner & Awards, Newcastle

Enjoyed an interesting site visit to Northumbrian Roads Ltd materials manufacturing plant on Tyneside. This was a new state of the art plant for manufacturing a range of black top products. What was particularly impressive was no only the degree of automation but the amount recycled road material being processed in some mixes this was up to 40% of the newly produced material and thereby reducing the cost of the end-product. Congratulations to Darren Kitchener and the NE & Cumbria Committee for organising a great night out at the Region’s Dinner and Awards event. Susan and I really enjoyed the evening. It was particularly good for Darren to raise the problem of mental illness in our industry in his dinner speech and promote the charity Mind for better mental health. Well done to all the successful winners of the awards for apprentice and young professional of the year plus the sustainable and overall project of the year.

17th October Hertfordshire/WSP/Arup Seminar on Customers & Communications in London

The next day after the CIHT dinner in Newcastle I was back in action speaking at this seminar whose theme was very relevant to my Presidential theme “of delivering better services and infrastructure to people”. This was an interactive day attended by a number of different highway authorities.

22nd October Family Walk in Clumber Park Nottinghamshire

I couldn’t resist including this picture of Susan and I together with our 6 children all under 7 years old! We don’t often get them all together but this weekend it just so happened all our family from around the country descended on us. So we went out on Sunday for a walk in Clumber Park. From left to right we have Aoife, Molly, Francesca, Reuben, Maya and Louis Lugg.

23rd October - ICE Global dinner, Great George Street

It was great to be invited to ICE global Engineering Congress dinner in the Great Hall at Great George Street. The congress its self was over 5 days and attended by 2500 delegates. The event led by the world Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO) and hosted by ICE is a first such congress with its key focus on delivering sustainable change through engineering.

This was an opportunity to meet delegates from all over the world as well as other Presidents from a range of technical institutions that had also been invited and also an opportunity to hear the ICE President Elect who gave the welcome speech. Good to meet up again with IHE President Johnathan Pearson.

26th October - CIHT East Midlands Region Dinner & Awards, Nottingham

Another amazing evening that Susan and I really enjoyed. Well done to the CIHT EM Committee and RichWorks for arranging such a successful event in a region that has struggle in the past to organise such an event. 

180 people attended an event which was great showcase for all that is good about CIHT. Congratulations to all the winners of the various awards. We enjoyed the guest speaker Perry McCarthy the original Stig from BBC’s Top Gear. And a nice touch to present Susan with a bouquet.

29th October – The budget

Some good news today for our sector got some quotes in Infrastructure Intelligence and Transport news:-

Matthew Lugg, Technical Director at WSP and CIHT President Comments:

“This will be very welcomed news for cash strapped English local highway authorities who have been struggling to maintain their road networks after all the surface damaged caused by a particularly harsh and prolonged winter. The extra funding for structures is equally important as there is increasing concern about the resilience of many bridges that are now coming to the end of their design life. It is important that this funding is targeted to where it is most needed and local authorities are not required to go through a lengthy bidding process.

This extra funding will make a difference, but there’s a need for a more effective long-term solution to tackle the national maintenance backlog estimated at around £8 billon. As CIHT President I’m leading a review (the Lugg Review) into the future options of funding and maintaining local roads in time to feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review in 2019.”

CIHT Gold Corporate partners Dinner, Lansdowne Club, London

One of the benefits we offer to our Corporate Gold partners twice a year is an invitation to attend a dinner with a guest speaker who was on this occasion Rupert Clubb Director of Communities, Economy and Transport at East Sussex County Council and chair of the Transport for the East Senior Office Group. Rupert has played a major part in developing the Transport for the South East Sub-National Transport Board. The dinner was attended by 15 of our Gold Corporate partners along with a number of the senior staff from CIHT. It was my job to welcome everyone and chair the discussion which was under Chatham House rules to enable everyone to speak freely about their views on not just the STB’s but a range of other issues .As this was held not long about the Chancellor delivered his autumn budget not surprisingly there was a lot of discussion on this topic. It was very enjoyable so many thanks to Rupert.

31st October - Board of Trustees, Britannia Walk

This was the second meeting of BOT under my chairmanship and involved a very busy agenda including updates on the performance of all our various Boards, CIHT finances, Project Alpha, the subscription review, and sponsorship strategy.

First meeting of the Lugg Review Steering Group 

After all the talk it was good to get together with members of the steering group for the Lugg Review which included:- Ginny Clark, Mike O’Dowd Jones (by phone), Steve Gooding (comments forwarded by e-mail) ,Andy Warrington ,Daniel Jackson and Andrew Hugill. We agreed the scope, the next steps and to meet again 21st November.

Launch of Collaborative Learning Circle (CLC), Houses of Lords

This was a really busy day which ended at this excellent event where one of the speakers was our Chief Executive Sue Percy. The CLC is a professional learning and development forum initiated and developed by Kier Highways. It is supported by its clients and supply chain partners to help transform our industry approach to drive the principles of collaboration through all levels of our industry via a series of e-learning modules and provide significant social value by supporting the charity OnSide Youth Zones with fundraising, mentoring and apprenticeship opportunities.

OnSide Youth Zones are designed to give young people aged 8-19, somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to. More than 38,000 members make 0.5 million visits to OnSide Youth zones every year attracting young people from the most disadvantaged communities, CIHT has accredited the training modules and agreed to have OnSide as its supported charity at our annual luncheon.