Water and Wastewater Engineering 2016

Milo  Purcell: Deputy Chief Inspector, Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI)

Milo Purcell, a Civil Engineer by profession, has more than 40 years’ experience of the water industry in the UK and overseas, in the public and private sectors. His early career included experience of design, planning and construction, mainly of wastewater facilities. Since joining DWI he has had experience of all aspects of drinking water quality regulation, including operational delivery, strategy, risk management, enforcement, asset management, legislative management and water industry reform.

Adam Brookes: Programme Manager, Anglian Water Services

Alison  Fergusson: Principal Engineer, Water 2020 Programme, Ofwat

Alison Fergusson is a Principal Engineer. She has been at Ofwat for 7 years and has more than 25 years’ experience in the UK water industry, having also worked in two of the large water and sewerage companies.  She is a chartered chemical engineer and a member of CIWEM.  Her work has been mostly in wastewater and sludge treatment, and in the 2014 price review she led the sewerage, wastewater treatment and sludge totex cost assessment work, modelling expenditure and assessing company business plans. She is now leading the design work on elements of the regulatory framework for the 2019 price review.

Keith  Solts : Technical Manager - MEICA, Flood & Coastal Risk Management, Environment Agency

Keith Solts has over thirty years professional experience which has been gained working on the design and implementation of automation and control systems within the water industry and associated process industries. He is currently responsible for national MEICA process and policy for flood defence systems owned and operated by the Environment Agency. His remit includes overseeing the setting up of frameworks for MEICA maintenance and small capital projects, ensuring compliance with statutory requirements including PUWER, LOLER and electrical systems. He is responsible for MEICA skills development within the Environment Agency area MEICA teams and running internal professional development schemes.

Neil Terry: Senior FCRM Adviser – MEICA, Environment Agency

Neil Terry has over twenty years professional experience which has been gained working on electrical and instrumentation systems in the water, automotive and cement industries.
He is currently responsible for the delivery of national MEICA process and policy for flood defence systems managed and operated by the Environment Agency. His work scope includes the management of national process and policy for MEICA systems. In particular mechanical, electrical safety, LOLER, pressure systems, BIM and our MEICA design standards.

Simon Hinsley: Project Sponsor, Birmingham Resilience Project, Severn Trent Water

Simon Hinsley is a Chartered Civil Engineer who joined Severn Trent Water in 1987. He has worked in various roles within Severn Trent’s engineering department, including on some of their biggest projects in recent years. For AMP5 he was responsible for delivery of the sewage treatment capital programme in the north of Severn Trent’s region and more latterly for the region-wide water distribution capital programme.   For the last 18 months he has been leading a multi-disciplinary, integrated team from Severn Trent, Jacobs and MWH in the design of the Birmingham Resilience Project 

Dr Michael  Jones: Water Resources and Process Modelling Manager, , Thames Water Utilities Ltd.

Michael Jones is a hydrogeologist with over 30 years experience spanning groundwater resources, hydrogeology and geology in the water industry, consultancy and research.  At Thames Water he has directed major groundwater resource developments, from feasibility assessment of future options through to development and operation, to support public water supply during drought in a climate changed future.  This has included the exploration, development and operation of managed aquifer recharge schemes, which can be important contributors to water supply resilience.  His role has now widened to cover water resource systems and water treatment works modelling to support asset investment.

Iggy  Pont Lezica: Pumping Systems Energy Efficiency Manager, , Thames Water Utilities Ltd.

Iggy Pont Lezica is a mechanical engineer and has been leading Thames Water’s pumping efficiency programme since 2011. This has included delivering over 50 multidisciplinary projects delivering over 20GWh of energy reductions. This has ranged from traditional pump refurbishments, to novel station control upgrades and full station upgrade projects. During his career at Thames Water Iggy has held a variety of roles, in design teams sizing clean water networks, on site overseeing the construction of new clean water treatment plants and in frontline operational management roles.

Dina  Gillespie: Project Manager, Shared Services Energy Team, , Thames Water Utilities Ltd.

Dina Gillespie is a project manager at Thames Water, specialising in energy efficiency projects in the waste water part of the business.  Since joining Thames Water in 2012 she has managed projects that have reduced energy consumption on site, such as the installation of variable speed drives in the sludge powered generation plants.  Dina’s most recent projects have included advanced process control of the aeration system at a number of sewage treatment plants to reduce over-aeration whilst ensuring compliance is not compromised. 

Steve  Carver : Capital Investment Manager GENeco, , Wessex Water Enterprises

Steve Carver is a chartered civil engineer and MBA graduate, with 36 years’ experience in the water and wastewater industry. Prior to joining Wessex Water, Steve worked for consultants in the south-east and south-west of England with overseas stints in Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and Oman totalling 4 years.On joining Wessex Water in 1998 Steve’s role was initially on capital project delivery and then later as technical standards manager. Since the GENeco business was formed in 2009, Steve’s responsibility has been for management of all GENeco capital investment activity and project management of key projects.

Bob  Stear: Head of Innovation, , Severn Trent Water Limited

Bob Stear is the Head of Research and Development at Severn Trent Plc who provide and treat water and waste water in the UK and internationally. Bob’s career has split into two halves; the first in operations management of sewage treatment and water production facilities serving circa 2 million customers and the second in strategic planning and performance improvement. In 2013 Bob was seconded into Defra for a year to work on implementation of the Water Act 2014.

Simon  Whatley: Director, mech2o engineering Limited

Simon Whatley is an independent consultant, and Managing Director of Mech2o Engineering Limited.  Until June 2015, Simon was Principal Mechanical Engineer in Thames Water, working in Engineering, Capital Delivery, Asset Management and Operations to provide analysis and advice on the design, selection, procurement, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of equipment.  Simon's 14 years with Thames Water has given him a unique perspective of standards for and issues related to procurement, use and maintenance of mechanical equipment used in the moving and treatment of water and wastewater in the UK water industry.

Dr Michael  Gallagher: Principal Hydraulic Engineer, United Utilities

Dr Michael Gallagher has worked at United Utilities for 10 years, with the last 8 years as Principal Hydraulic Engineer. He is responsible for delivery of hydraulic services within the business to support Operational Engineering, the delivery of the Capital Programme and Studies and Investigations.  He has developed a particular interest in Inlet Screening and has been involved in carrying out inlet screen performance assessments at numerous treatment works, joined a working group looking into inlet screen Operational Excellence efficiencies and provided technical input or support for the AMP6 inlet screen procurement strategy (KIT framework).

Ellie  Powers: Senior Asset Manager, NEP and Water Resources Team, , Affinity Water

Ellie Powers is an Environmental Scientist with extensive experience in asset management, environmental impact assessment and hydro-ecology.  She has been working for Affinity Water for seventeen years and currently holds the position of Senior Asset Manager; looking after their Water Resources team and programme managing its National Environment Programme.  Ellie has a keen interest in chalk streams and working towards securing a sustainable future for our water resources.  She has been working on Affinity’s fish screening programme with colleagues from their Asset Delivery team and the Environment Agency. Post implementation monitoring has been used to optimise screen performance and demonstrate compliance with legislation.

Rob  Casey: Water Strategy Manager, , Thames Water

Rob Casey, who has over 30 years of experience in water systems engineering was the Modelling Manager for Thames Water up until 2014 responsible for all clean water hydraulic modelling for a supply network supporting 7.4 million customers including steady state distribution modelling, surge analysis, water quality analysis, raw water and water treatment works modelling. Since 2014 Rob has taken up the new role of Water Strategy Manager responsible for implementing control strategies and decision support systems to optimise the operation of the Thames Water supply system.

Keith  Haslett: Area Business Manager- Manchester, Wastewater Services, , United Utilities

Keith Haslett is an Area Business Manager at United Utilities with over 15 years experience in the UK water industry. Keith is a graduate of Queens University of Belfast with degrees in Civil Engineering and Masters in Business Administration, and is a chartered civil engineer with the Institution of Civil Engineers. Keith is currently responsible for the business area that provides safe treatment and disposal of wastewater for the Greater Manchester area and delivering some of the largest wastewater projects for United Utilities in AMP6 at Davyhulme and Oldham wastewater treatment works.

Paul  Stanfield: Catchment Implementation Manager, , Wessex Water

Paul Stanfield has been working in catchment management for ten years tackling a wide variety of water quality issues including nitrates and pesticides (including metaldehyde). The work includes the protection of both groundwater and surface water public water supply sources. He leads an in-house team of five Agricultural Advisors, two Scientists and two Technicians. This team actively engages with farmers and landowners on an individual and group basis. During this period Wessex Water has not had to install any additional treatment for nitrate or pesticides.  

Roger  Middleton : Board Member, EESG

Retired Consulting Engineer in Water, Renewable Energy and Sustainability
Roger Middleton’s career has covered the design and installation of mechanical plant across different areas of industry. Roger brings experience from water and wastewater, production, automation, petro-chemical and marine industries to bear on a variety of engineering problems with a philosophy of developing technical excellence as a foundation for progress. He also coordinated expertise in the broad disciplines of Sustainability: renewable energy, carbon footprinting, energy efficiency, environmental interfaces and climate change impacts. Now retired, he is a Fellow of the IMechE. and an active Board member of their Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group.