PJA expands its transport, engineering and placemaking offering to include environmental services.
As straight-forward specialists that get the job done, supporting our clients and partners through challenges and finding the best, most innovative solutions to issues on the way is always our focus.
PJA’s new environment service area, led by industry expert Shirel Stedman, will work seamlessly with our existing placemaking, active travel and transport planning, water, civil engineering, and ground services to carefully guide clients through regulatory requirements to create places that exceed user expectations and address environmental considerations, harnessing shared potential along the way.
Mark Nettleton, Joint Managing Director, explains the journey to creating the new environment service area at PJA:
“At our 20th anniversary company conference, we took time out to talk about what the future holds for the industry and the business, and it was no surprise that the biggest topic of discussion was the environment. Our observations were that the most significant challenges to urban growth and infrastructure development are environmental; and given that PJA designs places for people, we have to address flooding and attenuation, water supply, biodiversity, carbon, air and water quality on a daily basis. We concluded that we should expand the knowledge of our staff to be able to address these challenges head on for our existing clients; and also, that we want to participate in the planning and implementation of infrastructure for new clients who are directly investing in these areas.
To do this we sought the advice of Shirel Stedman, who has over 30 years’ experience in these markets, having led technical teams and advised international companies. Shirel quickly identified that our vision ‘to create better places through great design’ necessitated a strengthening and diversification of our skill set. She advised investing in our water and nature teams specifically, and engaging with key people in those sectors.
We spent time thinking through the possibilities and opportunities and decided that this move was not only advantageous for our staff and clients, but essential for the future of the business. So, we began to take steps in 2024 with the appointment of Ana Togridou, an excellent scientist in nature positive development and an expert in biodiversity and ecology.
We are now delighted to announce that from 1st January, Shirel Stedman joins the Board as a Non-Executive Director, and that PJA will now also offer environmental services, working seamlessly with our existing transport planning, placemaking and engineering services.
We are really appreciative of our clients and staff that support us as we continue to grow and shape PJA. We desire to serve you well and to guide projects to the best possible outcomes. We hope that you will join us in celebrating this next step for the PJA team.”
The new nature services now on offer at PJA include UK Habitat Surveys, Habitat Condition, River Condition and Hedgerow Assessments, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) Reporting, Habitat Enhancement and Creation Proposals, and Habitat Management and Monitoring Plans. The existing water resources offering will also be expanded to include Rain Gardens, Blue Green Infrastructure, Urban Water Systems, Resilience Infrastructure, Climate Resilience and Catchment Analysis.
Find out more about our new services here
Get in touch: [email protected]
