Seminar report from 18th September 2014
With over 70 delegates registered for the Met Geo Environmental PAS128 seminar at the Double Tree Hilton in Leeds last Thursday, including engineers, architects, developers, constructors, and Project Managers from both private and public sectors, it was clear the new PAS128 guidelines have caught the attention of the whole industry.
Setting the agenda, Met director and former president of The Survey Association (TSA), Neil Harvey opened the seminar by explaining there has always been a lack of information on the location of utilities in the UK and there remains industry wide unease about sharing that information today.
Utility mapping is a relatively new innovation brought about by evolving technologies and a desperate need to understand where services are, what they are and what depth they are at in order to alleviate lost project time, increased cost and health and safety issues associated with excavation and construction works.
It was during Neil’s time as President of TSA that the task of developing some form of guide and standardisation for member companies undertaking utility surveys was initiated in consultation with survey companies, HSE and NUAG (National Utilities Action Group), culminating in the defined guideline to undertaking utility surveys published in July under the auspices of the British Standards Institute.
The principle seminar presentation, ‘PAS128, – What, Why, When and Where’ delivered by Met Geo Environmental director and Senior Surveyor, Sam Roberts, then detailed the investigation and data recordings methodologies proposed by the new guideline, as well as their implications for operators which, by his ensuing interrogation from the floor, struck a number of chords.
We are also immensely grateful to Paul Brown of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors for his presentation on ‘Buried Services’ and Dr Nicole Metje of the School of Civil Engineering, Birmingham University whose talk ‘Causes, Impacts and Costs of Strikes on Buried Utility Infrastructure’ offered some startling insight and statistics and provoked some lively debate.
Following positive feedback from delegates, we are exploring the opportunity to stage additional PAS128 seminar events in the midlands and south before the end of the year.
If you would like to pre-register your interest in these, or receive a copy of the principle presentation please contact Neil Harvey, (neil.harvey@metconsultancygroup.com) or Sam Roberts (sam.roberts@metgeo.com) or call us on 0113 200 8900.