We’re delighted to welcome Benjamin Mentha as a Senior Associate at our Melbourne office.

He will lead the transport team and support director Sam Williams in advising public and private sector clients within Melbourne, Geelong and regional Victoria markets.

Ben has 12 years’ experience working on urban development projects, including major subdivisions, residential, mixed-use and commercial buildings and retail centres.

He also has extensive experience providing strategic advice to public and private sector clients on rezonings, Precinct Structure Plans and Development Contribution Plans; and has provided expert evidence on a range of planning appeals and amendments, Planning Scheme Amendments and compulsory land acquisition matters.

He is looking forward to assisting clients with their transport engineering, planning and design projects whilst drawing upon PJA’s placemaking and active travel expertise.

Ben said: “I’m excited to be joining PJA and look forward to expanding PJA’s excellent reputation for integrated transport planning, active travel and placemaking into the Victorian market.

“Development planning is at the heart of PJA’s business and the ability to combine my local knowledge and expertise with the strength and breadth of our broader UK team will ensure that we are able to provide the best solutions for our clients.

“PJA’s team are passionate about creating better places through good design and are recognised for their quality and leadership, so it was a team that I really wanted to join.”

Sam Williams, Director at PJA, added: “We opened our Melbourne office with a clear mission to offer our clients a high level of service and integrated approach to all projects.

“Benjamin brings a clear passion, technical excellence and reputation to the team and we are excited for him to develop our service offerings further.”

Ben can be contacted at [email protected] or 0432 546 642

Our busy London team has moved to bigger premises to accommodate growing staff numbers and client work.

They are now based at Wenlock Studios on Wharf Road, Islington, located next to Regents Canal and close to the shops, cafes and restaurants of Upper Street and plenty of green space.

Strategic Projects Director Wayland Pope, who leads the London office, said: “As we come out of lockdown, this new office provides an ideal base to house our growing team and welcome clients.

“It’s close to train stations and the canal towpath for those who cycle, and there’s also plenty of places to walk to at lunchtimes.

“In line with our projected growth, the office also has extra space for the team to further expand in the near future.”

PJA’s London team provide transport, engineering and placemaking advice for new and existing developments.

Their project highlights include:

Transport for London Framework
PJA has two positions on Transport for London’s (TfL) renewed Transport Planning & Impact Monitoring Framework, with service areas including strategic transport planning and design, transport surveys and research. The contract enables TfL and the London Boroughs to access strategic consultancy support in transport planning and impact monitoring.

Haringey Emergency Active Travel Fund
PJA assisted Haringey Council in their London Streetspace Plan (LSP) bid, identifying and developing pop-up cycle route measures network in addition to potential low traffic neighbourhoods.

Following the successful bid application, TfL granted Haringey funding to develop Cycleway 1 upgrade and extension to Enfield. PJA undertook the design work for this scheme, focusing on developing measures from Seven Sisters station to the borough boundary with Enfield.

Faversham 20mph Town Wide Limit
Faversham became the first standalone UK town to have a town-wide 20mph speed limit. PJA provided technical advice to Faversham Town Council and Kent County Council on the feasibility of the town-wide speed limit. We also designed complementary gateway features which are located at key locations around the town.

Croydon Low Traffic Neighbourhood studies
PJA provided technical support to Croydon in the development of their Liveable Neighbourhood programme focussed on an initial nine neighbourhoods, and three corridor studies.

We analysed existing conditions in the neighbourhoods, focussing on health and air quality, walking and cycling potential, impact of vehicular traffic and access to key local destinations.

Old York Road, Wandsworth
PJA led on the development of a public realm and movement framework on Old York Road in Wandsworth. The project focused on reducing the impact of general traffic to enable the transformation of the streetscape and public realm in the area.

The full postal address of our London office is: PJA, G.03, Wenlock Studios, 50-52 Wharf Road, London N1 7EU

Get in touch today: [email protected] or 020 4541 0082

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We’re really excited to welcome experienced transport planner John Myatt as an Associate Director at our Birmingham Office.

John will lead and grow our public sector transport planning offer in the Midlands, to meet growing client demand following the launch of the government’s post-Covid Levelling up and Build Back Better initiatives.

John joins us from Birmingham City Council, where his most recent title was Transport Planning and Investment Manager. In that role his projects included the delivery of Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games as well as the city’s Covid response using the government’s Emergency Active Travel Fund. He previously held transport planning posts at Staffordshire County Council and Walsall Council.

PJA’s relationship with John stretches back several years, having worked together on Langley Sustainable Urban Extension, Peddimore Strategic Employment site and several masterplanning projects.

He brings extensive experience of the development and management of local authority capital programmes and transport strategies and has worked closely with developers and other stakeholders to bring forward large and complex sustainable urban extensions.

Mike Edwards, Director of our Birmingham office, said: “The Midlands is seeing huge investment through the government’s levelling Up and Building Back Better initiatives with new infrastructure projects and the development of a low carbon transport network to serve a growing and changing economy.

“Public sector demand for our services is growing, so we’re delighted to have John on board to head up our offer.

“He understands how to deliver projects in a public sector political environment and has extensive experience of working with partners and stakeholders across the public and private sectors – making him a great fit.”

John added “I have over 13 years’ experience of working in a political environment, working closely with key organisations, developers, businesses, politicians at all levels.

“This is a really exciting time to join and develop the PJA public sector offer, building a team that can offer both public and private sector clients the expert advice they need to deliver schemes in a public sector environment. PJA’s solution-led attitude to transport and development planning will be key to solving the challenges of building back better across the region after Covid-19.”

Get in touch with John: [email protected]

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This week we are giving recognition to all the amazing people who are selflessly volunteering to help and support people in their communities by sharing the great work of just some of the amazing volunteers we have at PJA.

In our final article of the week, Claire Harrison, a Transport Planning Associate in our Reading office talks about her work with the Education Business Partnership (EBP):

“I have been working with the EBP to motivate female students to consider a possible future STEM career.

As part of EBP’s ‘Girls in High Tech’ programme I visited several local schools across Berkshire with two colleagues to talk to girls about the role of engineers and transport planners, and to explain the challenges and excitement of major projects.

During these workshops the students were given 30 minutes to carry out a masterplanning exercise to create their own town with houses, shops, health services and transport links, with a variety of challenges to consider such as impacts on flood plains, AONB’s, SSI’s and where energy for their town might come from. The students worked well together in groups to come up with ideas of what was needed for their towns. These challenges are faced every day by transport planners.

The second task required the students to build the tallest giraffe from paper straws and masking tape. With only 20 minutes, the students had to think quickly about the structural design of their giraffe; how was the head to be supported? How will long legs by kept sturdy?

Both exercises built upon teamwork, time management, leadership skills and working with new people.

It is very rewarding to work with the students and to try and get across our passion for the industry and to help inspire the next generation.

Overall, this is an extremely positive experience for both the students and myself, as a STEM volunteer.

Unfortunately, these projects have been put on hold over the past year due to the pandemic. They are trying to go online and run virtual workshops in the meantime until workshops within schools can resume safely.”

Find out more about Education Business Partnership here

For more information on this, or on our transport planning services, please contact: [email protected]

Claire Harrison, BSc (Hons) MSc MCIHT
Claire has over 16 years experience in the transport planning sector with a varied portfolio that includes urban extensions, commercial, retail, education and residential developments. She has a successful track record working for private sector clients specialising in Transport Assessments, Transport Statements, Travel Plans and supporting projects through the local planning process. She has vast experience in the implementation of Residential and Site Wide Travel Plans across various sites in the UK as part of a Travel Plan Co-ordinator role. She is the first in the Country to be awarded the Modeshift STARS Bronze Accreditation for sustainable travel initiatives for a Travel Plan site in Ipswich.

Read our other Volunteer Recognition Day articles here

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As a conscientious company we constantly seek ways to ensure our work benefits the environment. We have therefore committed to being carbon neutral by 2024.

As part of the Carbon Neutral Programme we monitor our paper usage, recycling, electricity usage, staff mileage and commuter business mileage on a monthly basis and develop annual reduction targets.

Our Board all run electric or hybrid vehicles and we are mid way through a programme of changing all company pool cars to hybrid or electric vehicles. We are also moving towards even greater sustainability by ensuring our hire car suppliers only provide us with hybrid and electric vehicles.

All our employees benefit from a Cycle to Work scheme, enabling them to purchase a bike and accessories for travel to their office. We conduct travel surveys annually to monitor commuting trends with the aim of encouraging more environmentally friendly methods of travel.

We are committed to our Corporate Social Responsibility Programme for Green, Sustainable and Ethical Procurement, and are now working on ensuring that our transport planning, engineering and placemaking advice is in line with carbon best practice.

For more information, contact [email protected]

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This week we are giving recognition to all the amazing people who are selflessly volunteering to help and support people in their communities by sharing the great work of just some of the amazing volunteers we have at PJA.

In our penultimate article of the week, Darja Orlovska, an engineer in our Birmingham office talks about her volunteering experience with the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Awards:

“I’ve been lucky to be exposed to various volunteering opportunities from a young age. Volunteering in a charity shop, with adults with learning difficulties, at care homes, at park clean ups, litter picking and many more. As a teen I’ve volunteered out of necessity rather than choice, because it was part of an exciting programme, because I could get work experience and put it on my CV. Little did I know I would get much more than just work experience. Those opportunities taught me very early on that the most valued donation you can make to a charity is your time! Sure charities need funds to run, but they wouldn’t exist without their volunteers.

I’ve completed the DofE Award myself and reflecting back on my journey I could see the positive impact it left on me. So when I had some spare time again and wanted to volunteer, choosing a DofE group was a no brainer. I started volunteering for my local DofE group to help the participants with preparation for their expedition part of the award and eventually went on to help with running the expeditions too. Showing teenagers how to put up tents, read maps and cook pasta on the camping stove – it’s all great fun, especially if they’ve never done it before. I’m passionate about outdoors and it is amazing to be able to pass on the practical knowledge and good practices to young people who are in most cases are just getting their first taste of the world that is out there.

Volunteering with young people isn’t without challenges – as I did once, some, if not most of the participants, see the DofE Award as something they need on their CV or university application. So there are times when participants are low on motivation, don’t see much point in it and would rather be at home watching TV (tends to happen fairly frequently on a second rainy day of a walking expedition). However, those are the times you bond most with the young people and if you are successful at bringing their mood up a little and encouraging them to carry on, they are very grateful at the end for you just being there for them. And you come out with your negotiation skills upgraded to a new level!

Being a female DofE group volunteer, people assume I’m a teacher, but once they find out I’m a civil engineer it is a great conversation starter with participants and staff alike. Young people are excited to get a perspective of a working professional, as some are considering studying civil engineering at university but have little idea about what their job would actually entail, and others had no idea what to do with their chosen A levels and now they have a choice they are considering. Whereas being able to chat to staff, who most often are teachers, is a good opportunity to discuss ideas for STEM events and teachers are keen to draw on your industry experience which they can incorporate into their lessons too.”

Find out more about the DofE Award and volunteering opportunities here

For more information on this, or our engineering services, please contact: [email protected]

Darja Orlovska

Darja is a civil engineer with experience in both private and public sectors. Her focus is predominantly in highway design from feasibility and concept studies through to detailed design.

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This week we are giving recognition to all the amazing people who are selflessly volunteering to help and support people in their communities by sharing the great work of just some of the amazing volunteers we have at PJA.

In our third article of the week, Catriona Swanson, Active Travel Associate in our Manchester office, shares her volunteering experience:

“I’ve been volunteering with my local park group in Salford – the Friends of Lightoaks Park – for the last three years. In normal (non-pandemic!) times, we hold maintenance sessions in the park every other Sunday. They usually last around three hours and typically involve things like litter picking, pruning, weeding and tree or bulb planting.

We also organise events over the year including a Christmas event with a Santa’s grotto, community picnic and a big summer event. I’ve also managed to meld my day job (active travel) with volunteering by organising a couple of “Big Bike Revival” events where people can come and get their bike repaired for free or try out a range of cargo bikes and adapted cycles.

We have a core group of around 20 volunteers and lots more people who come help on an ad hoc basis (it turns out that kids love litter picking) and several hundred people normally come to our events.

The pandemic has highlighted the value of our local green spaces for physical and mental health so it’s a really good feeling to see the park being used so much and seeing how grateful people are that we have such a lovely space on our doorsteps.

It’s a really good, positive group to be part of and I really value the mental health and wellbeing benefits I get from spending time in the park with my new group of friends. I’m really looking forward to lockdown restrictions lifting so we can get back to our regular maintenance sessions and start organising events again. I have a feeling they will be more popular than ever.”

Find out more about Friends of Lightoaks Park here

For more information on this, or our active travel services, please contact: [email protected]

Catriona Swanson BSc (Hons) MPlan

Catriona has over 12 years’ experience delivering active travel, sustainable transport, regeneration and placemaking schemes in both the public and private sectors. Catriona’s experience includes network planning and concept design as well as overseeing the detailed design and delivery of schemes. She is particularly passionate about inclusive design and creating Healthy Streets.

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This week we are giving recognition to all the amazing people who are volunteering to help and support people in their communities by sharing the great work of just some of the amazing volunteers we have at PJA.

Following on from yesterday’s article Jane Overton, Transport Planner in our Birmingham office, shares her volunteering experience with The Access Project, a charity that supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds:

“The Duke of Edinburgh Award has been in the news a lot over the last few weeks, and although I didn’t progress to the Gold Award and meet the Duke himself, it was my experience completing the Bronze Award that has fuelled my passion for volunteering in the local community ever since.

I’ve been volunteering with The Access Project since 2015. The Access Project, or TAP for short, is a fantastic charity that works to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds to access top universities through a combination of tuition and in-school mentoring. It is the tuition element of their work that I have been involved with for the past six years – and I can honestly say it’s one of the most rewarding, heart-warming and enjoyable volunteering opportunities I’ve ever been involved in.

As a volunteer tutor, the charity matches you with a student studying for their GCSEs or A-Levels for weekly hour long tutorials. For me, this has been in GCSE Maths or GCSE/A Level Geography. Since April last year all tutorials have been carried out online via a secure, dedicated tutoring platform, but before then the majority of tutors met their students in their workplace – this allowed students to get experience of travelling by themselves, planning journeys, and using public transport.

There are huge inequalities in experiences of education across the UK between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. Whilst I was incredibly fortunate throughout my education to not experience these inequalities, involvement in TAP has allowed me to do something practical, immediate and personal to address this issue.

For students, involvement in TAP can be life changing – not only does participation improve their grades, but also gives each student increased confidence, new life skills, one-to-one support in areas they find challenging and exposure to those who have been through the higher education system, all of which means they are more likely to attend a top university.

I am by no means an exceptional mathematician and before I started tutoring I was worried I wouldn’t be able to remember enough maths (or geography!) to support someone through some of the most important years of their young lives. However, TAP gives all tutors brilliant training and a dedicated set of subject specific resources to help you deliver tutorials. After a few sessions, I soon realised that I didn’t need to be a subject expert, but rather needed to use my own experience, passion and knowledge to coach the students to understand the more complex concepts, stretch their abilities and increase their confidence. Since starting at PJA in 2019, the company have always been very supportive of my involvement in volunteering activities, including TAP.

Tutoring in maths and geography has given me the chance to share with someone else the passion I have for subjects that are relevant to my job, and to demonstrate real life applications of school subjects. In terms of professional development, tutoring with TAP has allowed me to demonstrate key competencies required for chartership, and also to improve my communication and planning skills.

A stand out moment for me was hearing the GCSE and A Level results of a student I tutored in geography for nearly three years – not only had she achieved top grades and got into her first choice university, but every week I could see her confidence in the subject, and her independence grow. I was incredibly proud of all she had achieved, but also that our tutorials had a positive, lasting impact on her education.”

Find out more about The Access Project here

For more information on this, or our transport planning services, please contact: [email protected]

Jane Overton BA (Hons)

Jane has over 5 years’ experience working for a range of public and private sector clients primarily in development planning, but also in scheme appraisal, travel planning and transport modelling.

Her key skills include junction modelling, accessibility analysis and travel demand forecasting to support the preparation of Transport Assessments and other technical documents for a range of developments including residential, education and employment land uses.

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This week we are giving recognition to all the amazing people who are volunteering to help and support people in their communities by sharing the great work of just some of the amazing volunteers we have at PJA.

First up is Sam Goss, an Engineering Associate in our Reading office, who volunteered his highway engineering and project management skills to assist in the roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine at his local doctor’s surgery:

“My local doctor’s surgery experienced a number of challenges with their first Covid-19 vaccine roll out in December 2020, which made local news for all the wrong reasons.

I contacted them to see if my highway engineering and project management experience could help with wider off-site planning and logistics. After meeting the Surgery Manager, I proposed a vaccine day management plan and signage, incorporating measures to improve parking, traffic flow and access for patients with limited mobility. I also liaised with the highway authority requesting a temporary order to suspend sections of on-street parking to implement the plan.

Since implementing the changes, the operations at the surgery have been much improved and allowed some of the most vulnerable patients priority access, including the ability to vaccinate them in their vehicle.

I’ve continued the support, setting up and marshalling on vaccine days alongside The Lions Club of Reading and to date, the Tilehurst Vaccination Hub has administered over 15,000 vaccines in the local community with a peak of 1,400 in a single day.

I’ve been very fortunate to continue working through the pandemic, so its really nice to give something back and play a small part in supporting the NHS and local community.”

For more information on this, or our highway engineering and project management services, please contact: [email protected]

Sam Goss 

Sam is an associate based in our Reading office and a Chartered Civil Engineer with 20 years’ experience in both the private and public sector with a focus on highway and public realm design.

He has worked on a wide range of projects from Section 278 schemes to large strategic highway infrastructure and public transport schemes, undertaking the design, delivery and management of all project stages including extensive construction stage experience. Sam is passionate about good quality design, with an eye for detail and believes that building good relationships provide the foundation for project success.

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TRICS has been a long-established element of the technical transport assessment process providing a repository of useful data on site specific transport impacts. PJA has been at the forefront of using TRICS to provide informed transport assessments for many years and as contributors to the latest ‘Decide and Provide’ guidance, are well placed to offer advice.

The context within which land development related transport functions is evolving at a rapid rate. Covid-19, decarbonisation and a high pace of socio-demographic change all equal a new landscape for the assessment of development related transport impacts. All these effects suggest that the long-held view of “Predict and Provide” for the assessment and management of transport implications is now out of date.

To reflect this moving context the TRICS Consortium, who develop and operate TRICS, has been looking for ways to ensure the database, which sets out historic data, can move forwards in this ‘new’ world. In February 2021 TRICS issued a guidance document called the “Practical Implementation of the Decide and Provide Approach” in order to seek to provide a bridge to the new’ world.

If a form of development zoning is what emerges from the most recent proposed set of changes to the land use planning system in England, then a forward-looking view will become even more important. Fundamental choices about site layout and transport measures will be needed much earlier in the process, most likely at the local plan making.

Current thinking is to move to a transport planning approach based on providing each new place or development with a clear vision of what in transport terms it aspires to. The vision is designed to place the site in its spatial context. This could be driven by a range of factors:

• Local context – a small urban infill development would have a very different vision to a major SUE site for example.
• Transport connections – a site in an urban area on a main urban bus route or near a rail station would have a different transport perspective to a site in a village location. Equally, a large site on the urban fringe would have a different vision and outlook compared to mixed use city centre location.

From this thought process three core question emerge:

• What sort of place are we creating?
• What kind of activities do we need or desire to travel for?
• How will we provide for mobility?

This is at the centre of ‘Decide and Provide’ i.e. deciding on a preferred future and providing a development path best suited to achieving it can be represented by setting out a range of the potential trip generation outcomes.

The answers to these will dictate what will occur next. The aim suggested in the new guidance is to develop a number of scenarios that reflect the future transport implications for the development and to provide a range of transport solutions that meet the vision for the site.

TRICS still provides a dataset of comparator locations, these being used to make informed choices about a development’s transport characteristics and aims. Thus, the mechanics of the TRICS operation doesn’t change but the thought being given to the spatial context and application of the data harvested from the database is a fundamental change in approach.

The immediate outcome is likely to be a move towards menus of transport interventions as a basis for s106 agreements or for the spending of money from the proposed infrastructure levy. It will also challenge masterplanning activities to focus more on inter and intra site movement than currently seen. A further key challenge will be to persuade planning and highway officers at local authorities that a ‘worst case’ traffic assessment is not the ‘best’ or ‘most relevant’ case.

PJA are working to implement the new guidance through engagement with local planning and transport authorities. We are uniquely placed to ensure that the vision of each development is shaped to meet current and future transport requirements as our offer includes place making, urban and rural mobility and public transport development coupled with a strong track record securing effective transport solutions for development.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

Find the TRICS “Practical Implementation of the Decide and Provide Approach” here

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