This month we welcomed a new director, Stephen Drew, to our infrastructure team in Birmingham. With a career spanning more than 35 years, we’re happy to benefit from Stephen’s knowledge and experience within the sector.
We’ve taken the time to get to know Stephen and find out what he is most looking forward to in his new role within the Pegasus team.
So Stephen, tell us a little bit about your professional background
I started my career off at the local authority as a surveyor but soon moved into engineering and drainage when I discovered its vast potential to have a positive impact on the places we live and work in.
As is so often the case, my career path has taken new routes when opportunities arose; I’ve worked in civils, roads and earthworks.
And I’ve been working in the private sector since 2000.
What sectors do you work across?
As you might expect, with my consultancy background I’ve worked across most sectors, but am perhaps best known for advising on infrastructure for residential proposals and, more recently, advising in the industrial and commercial sector.
It’s given me a broad understanding of the key infrastructure elements that are crucial to creating successful places.
What is it that particularly interests you about working in infrastructure?
Whether you’re working on a small infill site or a major urban extension, there are always new challenges to tackle. It’s a sector that’s constantly evolving and it keeps me on my toes.
What is the biggest challenge facing the industry?
Continuing to innovate and develop sustainable drainage is absolutely crucial to ensuring the industry is appropriately addressing climate change and delivering innovative sustainable design solutions.
The problem is that typical sustainable drainage solutions like swales or ponds can be land hungry. That makes them, understandably, challenging to implement for our developer clients who need to make schemes viable.
What’s the solution?
We often advise clients to explore opportunities for using green roofs in schemes, which helps to reduce the rate of run off without taking up vast areas of developable land.
Our approach is always to talk sooner and more collaboratively to identify creative solutions that meet our clients’ project requirements while also securing all-important sustainable design solutions.
What question you are most often asked by clients about the sector?
Design guidelines across the built environment sector are constantly changing, and it’s no different in sustainable drainage. I’m often asked by clients about what the latest requirements are for SuDS design.
One of the main changes for our clients is the water authorities adopting SuDS features as part of the drainage network which was part of the new Sewer Sector Guidance (SSG), though this may still be a challenge with some water authorities.
What are you excited about over the coming months?
Our expansion in Birmingham is timely, coinciding with the West Midlands’ growth and the combined authority investment which is set to further strengthen the region.
While I’m based in the Midlands, I’m excited to be working with infrastructure colleagues from across the Group’s offices as well as colleagues from other areas of expertise.
I’ll be growing the infrastructure team here in Birmingham to serve existing and new developer clients across the West and East Midlands. I’m particularly looking forward to the continued expansion of our expertise in industrial schemes.
There’s plenty of exciting projects to keep the team busy, so I’ll be hitting the ground running and growing my team over the next few months.
Stephen’s appointment marks the expansion of the Group’s infrastructure team into Birmingham, complementing our existing capabilities in Bristol and Cambridge. If you’re looking for the next challenge in your career, get in touch.