Thank you for watching our COVID-19 Video Series. In this video Senior Consultant Tom Millard discusses how COVID-19 has impacted the development of transport business cases.
Full list of the videos in this series:
Thank you for watching our COVID-19 Video Series. In this video, our Associate Annabel Keegan shares her thoughts on what the implications of COVID-19 might be for design.
Full list of the videos in this series:
PJA has recently been appointed to deliver Wakefield’s ambitious city centre masterplan as part of a wider multidisciplinary team led by Farrells, working alongside Aspinall Verdi, FutureCity and UK Networks.
This ambitious project will create a Vision and Masterplan for the city centre, together with Urban Design and Placemaking Guidance and a Delivery Strategy.
Key areas to be covered by the masterplan will include land use, movement, green infrastructure, urban design, and overall development strategy. The core area focuses on land immediately surrounding the cathedral while the wider study area stretches out to the city’s ‘Emerald Ring’ green walking route.
Please get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about our Town and City Centre regeneration projects.
On Friday 27th March the Department for Transport issued ‘Decarbonising Transport – Setting the Challenge’ – click here for the full report.
This announced the start of an intensive period of activity leading up to the publication of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan (TDP) in the Autumn of this year, and prior to the UN’s annual climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow in November.
The report starts by acknowledging that ‘Climate change is the most pressing environmental challenge of our time’. It sets out the contribution that transport currently makes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are now larger than any other sector of the economy, generating 28% of all UK carbon.
The report looks at each mode and sector of transport in turn and forecasts the change in emissions that will occur based on current policies and trends. Although GHG emissions from transport are due to fall from today’s 120 MtCO2e to around 80 MtCO2e by 2050, this is far short of what is needed to achieve the Government’s overall Net Zero targets.
Radical change is needed and DfT sets out six strategic priorities:
Although it remains to be seen what impact the current pandemic has on the process, DfT plans to engage widely with the transport sector, including through a series of workshops. Stakeholders are invited to register their interest at [email protected]. PJA has already registered its interest.
The TDP promises to be the most significant development in transport policy for many years and will have implications in all spheres, including local transport policies, mode-specific transport strategies and the planning and design of transport infrastructure and new developments. We will continue to closely monitor progress on the TDP over the coming weeks and months and issue regular updates to our clients.
Traffic levels and travel patterns will alter significantly over the coming weeks and months due to the impact of the social distancing strategy being employed in response to the Coronavirus.
As a result, several Local Highway Authorities have already confirmed that they will not accept new traffic surveys conducted after Friday 13th March 2020, until further notice. We fully anticipate that all local highway authorities will adopt this stance.
We appreciate that this current situation may raise questions for our clients, particularly around whether work on Transport Assessments and other transport planning projects should be paused if it is not possible to collect new traffic data.
However, in most cases we expect to be able to provide a ‘business as usual’ service, given that there is already a substantial amount of readily available traffic survey data in the public domain. For example:
For some projects it may be necessary to validate the above sources with local traffic counts when network conditions return to normal, but utilising existing data sources will allow your projects to remain on track.
If you have any concerns about how Coronavirus may affect your project, then please do contact one of our team and we will be happy to discuss any queries directly.
We would like to reassure all our clients and partner organisations that PJA will be able to provide continuity of service throughout this period of home working and social distancing.
Due to the ongoing investment in our systems and as part of our existing commitment to flexible working, our IT infrastructure and project data is already held in a cloud environment and the majority of our staff already use mobile devices, which means that our teams can work from anywhere.
We have put in place additional measures to allow those staff normally reliant on fixed workstations to work remotely, and we also have the ability to host client’s own project data on our secure cloud servers if need be.
Our staff are already used to collaborating on projects virtually using Microsoft Teams, both within and outside the business, and our management systems are also cloud-based, so we are fully capable of delivering for our clients throughout this period of uncertainty.
If there are any specific measures we can put in place to assist our collaboration with your business during this time, please feel free to speak to the senior management team at PJA.
We wish all our colleagues well in the weeks and months to come.
On 30th January 2020 the ‘Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’, the independent body set up to advise government on how to promote and increase the use of high-quality design for new build homes and neighbourhoods published its final report ‘Living with Beauty’.
The report sets out a number of recommendations to Government on how to promote and increase the use of high-quality design for new build homes and neighbourhoods.
We were pleased to contribute to the work of the Commission, participating in a highways-specific workshop.
We welcome the report, which endorses our place-led philosophy to transport planning and engineering. The report states that the findings of the practitioners are embodied in the current ‘Manual for Streets’, which PJA led on. The report goes on to recommend that this should be co-ordinated with the government’s new National Model Design Code, and that Manual for Streets 1 (2007) and Manual for Streets 2 (2010) should be brought together into one combined manual.
We look forward to contributing to the forthcoming revision of Manual for Streets through our involvement in the CIHT Urban Design Panel.
The full report can be found online here:
If you have any questions on the implications of the report, please contact:
Phil Jones or Annabel Keegan
E: [email protected] / [email protected]
T: 0121 475 0234
With increased turnover, new team members, senior promotions and a new office, 2019 saw us continue to grow in strength and success.
Helping to secure the redevelopment of the Astbury Hall estate near Bridgnorth kicked off our achievements in early 2019 and it continued from there with several other consents, permissions and appointments over the year including the £100m Space Park in Leicester and 2,560 homes in Worcestershire.
We continued to achieve results with another Appeal win for Joint Managing Director Nigel Millington and PJA being appointed onto frameworks for Homes England and Gloucestershire County Council.
Our ground engineering and contaminated land team demonstrated their expertise by guiding clients to manage ground risk and facilitate future development, while our civil engineers went from commercial units in Swindon to new homes in Bristol to ‘Forging Ahead’ with the Black Country Museum.
Our placemaking team worked on a number of highly regarded flagship schemes, retaining our reputation as innovators and leaders in the field, while we saw our economics and business case development service offering go from strength to strength, helping to secure funding for a state-of-the-art cycle hub at Ebbsfleet Garden City and a major infrastructure improvement at UK Central Hub.
Our Chairman, Phil Jones, also had a busy year. He completed a speaking tour of Hong Kong and Australia, including a keynote address at Australia’s National Traffic and Transport Conference in Adelaide, plus he headed up a task force to identify how a national speed limit of 20mph could be introduced to residential areas across Wales. He was also appointed to a task force helping to breathe new life into struggling high streets and town centres across the West Midlands.
We invested heavily in our IT infrastructure with a move to a cloud environment for the whole business, facilitating our increasingly flexible and collaborative way of working. The launch of our employee share ownership scheme created the opportunity for our team to become shareholders, enabling everyone to share in the ongoing success of the firm.
We proudly hosted a United Nations sponsored delegation in South Wales, held our first roundtable discussion lunch event, sponsored the Birmingham Development Plans Conference, held bake off’s, cheesecake competitions and competed in charity runs! It’s been a busy year.
We did 2019 proud. Bring on 2020 and the new decade.
Transport Planning Day highlights best practice in putting people at the heart of transport plans and the significant contribution transport planners make to people across the UK.
With this in mind, we asked our transport planning team: What inspires you professionally?
“When I walk down the High Street at Longbridge, where we designed much of the infrastructure as part of a multi-disciplinary and multi-company team, I see people shopping, working, having coffee with friends, having lunch in the park and having a kick about, and I think ‘I did this’. I remember the challenge we were given of turning a bad news story, the death of a British car manufacturing icon and 6000 people out of work, into a good news story of £1Bn investment to build a new heart and a new start for the community, and in the end getting a big result for the City of Birmingham. Creating good places for people is what transport planning and engineering is about, how can you not be inspired by that?”
Mark Nettleton, Joint Managing Director
“I am proud of my job because I am working for the cause I believe in – to make streets places again through sustainable transport planning.”
Justin Yim, Graduate Consultant, London office
“What inspires me professionally is being able to see the projects I’m involved in be brought to life in the real world and the knowing that I have contributed towards it in my own way”
Daniel Bent, Transport Modelling Associate, Birmingham office
“While all aspects of civil engineering profoundly affect people’s lives, transport and highways undoubtedly have the greatest human element and concomitant subjectivity, as context and ‘soft factors’ matter immensely, even if traditional practice doesn’t realise this. The public realm is the environment we probably spend the most time in after home and work, and people don’t just travel for boring mechanical reasons; even when they do, the design of the system can profoundly influence their wellbeing. The planning and design of public realm and the transport environment should reflect this. I am therefore always motivated to provide the right solution in the right location, and design infrastructure and environments that meets the needs of people and not just vehicles and can inspire and enable people to lead happy, healthy and fulfilled lives. I am lucky to work at PJA where placemaking is a core value of the business, and I bring this outlook to both my transport planning and street design workstreams.”
Andrew Saffrey, Senior Consultant, Birmingham office
“As transport planners, we have a great opportunity to shape a better world in which everyone can travel safely whilst minimising their impacts on our planet. Through effective transport planning, we can deliver better, healthier, and more successful places whilst speeding up decarbonisation and improving quality of life for all.”
Dominik Stansby, Senior Consultant, Bristol office
“The opportunity to shape the future by working on projects that have a real impact. In particular, I am passionate about helping to create sustainable places and ensuring that sustainable transport is at the heart of future development is a key component of this.”
Daniel Bowditch, Graduate Consultant, Birmingham office
“A career in Transport planning appealed to me as a geography graduate due to the impacts of travel choice on the environment, society and people’s daily life. The opportunity to contribute to the design of new places to facilitate walking, cycling and public transport access, and to seek to understand and influence people’s travel choice really interests me. The variety and challenges offered by every project keeps the role interesting.”
Eliot King, Associate, Bristol office
“I’m inspired professionally by knowing that in our role as transport planners we are able to improve the well-being of others and provide opportunities for people to fulfil their potential, whether that be designing spaces that are accessible for all, getting planning permission for an employment led development or identifying improvement schemes for busy road corridors in city centres that ease congestion and improve air quality – the possibilities are endless!”
Jane Overton, Consultant, Birmingham office
“Transport planning is the key to unlocking new development. My role gives me the opportunity to shape new communities, from the design of new junctions to developing sustainable transport solutions.”
Joe Wooldridge, Senior Consultant, Birmingham office
“I get inspiration from making a difference to a project. This inspiration is driven by the game-changing people around me, and as a graduate I want to learn and apply professional skills to make a positive difference. In turn, I’m inspired to develop my career and reach my full potential.”
Kyle Conroy, Graduate Consultant, Bristol office
“When embarking on a career in transport planning, I didn’t really appreciate the influence you could have as a transport planner. Being able to influence the design of new developments and seeing in real life how the design choices you made can positively impact the people who live or work there really inspires me.”
Kay Nicholls, Principal Consultant, Birmingham office
“I enjoy shaping the environments where people live and work, and also seeing an end product to the hard work we do.”
Steve Bates, Associate, Birmingham office
“I choose to pursue a career in transport planning because of the importance it has in everyday life – it is regularly taken for granted that there is infrastructure in place for movement. Seeing particularly well-designed and poorly-designed transport solutions inspires me, to ensure that the work I do reaches its full potential.”
Lucy Smith, Consultant, Reading office
“What inspires me professionally is the knowledge that the work I do can influence the outcomes of development and shape the environment in which we all live.”
Beth Street, Consultant, Birmingham office
“Finding technical solutions to problems faced by a majority of people on a daily basis.”
Nick Woolley, Transport Modelling Consultant, Birmingham office
“I fell into the planning profession as a job vaguely related to my degree but meant that I didn’t have to move home after university! I did however always have an interest in Geography and the built environment and, having entered the profession, I particularly enjoy the breadth of issues that we deal with from detailed highway capacity modelling to designing better streets to encourage active travel. The emphasis on good quality design is very important for the future of the industry to encourage a shift away from the private car – streets are used by everyone every day so anything that can be done to improve the environment for all users not just drivers vital to accommodating future travel needs.”
Matthew Franklin, Associate Director, Reading office
“‘I look to have an influence on modern developments, and assist in the transport challenges we face in a growing, dynamic world. This includes the importance of sustainability to assure that developments benefit the future as much as they do the present.”
Matthew Wykes, Graduate Consultant, Birmingham office
Feeling inspired?
Check out our careers page to see our current job opportunities.
Find out more about what we do.
We asked one of our Graduate Transport Planning Consultants, Matt Wykes, what led him to want to pursue this career and what it’s really like to be a transport planner at PJA. Read what he had to say to give a real insight into what a career as a graduate in transport planning at PJA is all about:
“The idea of having an involvement in new, modern and dynamic landscapes proved to be the starting point for my pursuit for a career in transport planning. Growing up around south Birmingham, I used the Longbridge Town Centre as an example of the redevelopment projects I hoped to work on when explaining my career aspirations – and little did I know that nearly half a decade later, I’d be all too familiar with the development!
Throughout a degree in Human Geography at the University of Reading, the complex contemporary issues of development became increasingly apparent. Transport, for me, was at the forefront – perhaps skewed by ongoing developments such as Crossrail and HS2. I found that the career of a transport planner was most appealing, as it provided the opportunity to work on development projects, while solving smaller issues integral to day-to-day life.
Towards the end of university, I began to prepare myself for a career in transport planning and a family member drew my attention to PJA. I was enthusiastic to apply for the graduate role after gaining an understanding of the company, and despite being a Birmingham City fan in an office dominated by Aston Villa fans, I’ve made it here today!
It would be difficult to describe a ‘typical’ day at PJA, whether it be conducting a desktop assessment of the baseline transport conditions for a Transport Assessment, preparing graphics on GIS, modelling junctions and developing traffic flows, or eating cake as part of one of our office charity events -every day is different! The learning curve is steep, but the friendly support from my colleagues has allowed me to take to new tasks with ease – which has rendered my most difficult task to be waking up early every morning after 3 years of university life!
I accepted the offer for a graduate role at PJA while still completing my degree. I was immediately invited on one of the office’s regular social events which was the perfect way to be introduced to everyone, and reaffirmed that PJA was the right place for me.
My expectations of working on exciting new developments have certainly been met, while I have gained an appreciation of the further work transport planners do. I’ve gained an understanding of the importance of transport in smaller scale developments, and the expert professional advice transport planners can provide for day-to-day issues. Further appreciation has involved liaison with clients, the influence of policy, and the most effective ways of sharing resources and workload among our team.
I’d advise anyone considering a career in transport planning to definitely take a look into what the role entails. If, like me, you are interested in being involved with development, and understand the demand for effective transport solutions in a growing world – then don’t hesitate to explore the wide range of opportunities out there.”
If you are interested in joining the PJA Graduate Scheme, please view our recruitment page here
Matt Wykes, Graduate Consultant
Matt joined the PJA Graduate Development Programme in September 2019 after graduating from the University of Reading with a BSc (Hons) in Geography.
Matt has over a year’s experience at PJA and has obtained experience producing Transport Assessments, Travel Plans and other technical documents for both public and private sector clients. Building on the knowledge gained from his studies, Matt has also provided technical input into projects using data analysis skills and GIS tools.
Contact: [email protected]
