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ICE
President's sustainability focus overlooks critial issues
I applaud our new President Anusha Shah’s desire, in line with her recent predecessors, to promote increased awareness of the sustainability challenges we as civil engineers all face, but just wonder if the next President could perhaps focus on some of the many other issues that confront us daily.
Shah: Sustainability focused
Site safety and productivity are two crucial aspects of a civil engineer’s professional obligations, and in my view do not receive nearly enough attention from the ICE.
Indeed, recent comments about the “over engineering” of High Speed 2 as a major contributor to cost overruns highlight how poor productivity (or efficiency) is having a major impact on development and modernisation of our infrastructure.
Other UK projects are no doubt in the same position. This appears to be in stark contrast to the comments in Gavin Pearson’s inaugural leader (NCE, last month) about the many ambitious and innovative projects currently underway overseas.
Whereas once the UK was a world leader in the design and construction of infrastructure projects worldwide, perhaps it is now time for us to start learning from our overseas colleagues about how to deliver them on time and within budget.
Bill Addington (M) bill@techsolco.com