Team in Focus | Stantec

What is your role at Stantec?

In my role as Account Director, I lead on supporting local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and other public sector bodies to commission our planning, design, engineering and environmental consultancy services, as a partner for Perfect Circle on the SCAPE framework.

Tell us more about what Stantec does

With over 2000 people working in integrated regional teams across the UK, we plan, design, deliver and manage the development and infrastructure needed to support the creation of sustainable, healthy and prosperous communities.

Our work begins at the intersection of client relationships, creativity and community - providing effective and relevant solutions, translating our client’s vision into valued consents, deliverable plans for projects and programmes, and efficient designs for delivery, based on technical excellence and deep market insight.

We provide a range of community development, buildings, transport, energy, environmental, asset management and programme management services.

What attracted Stantec to joining Perfect Circle as a Preferred Partner?

At Stantec, we believe communities are fundamental and we always design with community in mind.

Perfect Circle shares our vision for creating social value and driving economic growth, and we have been working with public sector clients in the UK for over 150 years.

Having worked extensively with Balfour Beatty on a number of transformative infrastructure projects through the SCAPE framework we are pleased to now enter into a supplier relationship with Perfect Circle where we can help more public sector clients deliver real social value to their communities.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing your clients in the public sector in the next decade?

Stantec helps local authorities to navigate the ever-changing landscape and challenges associated with safeguarding and growing prosperous communities.

We know that the pressure on health and welfare services, disruption in education, meeting climate change requirements, how we redefine the use of our town centres and deliver affordable housing, are key challenges for our public sector clients. But we also have the opportunity to reimagine how we build back better – providing more sustainable long-term solutions that deliver real social value.

Can you share a few examples of how you’re supporting public sector bodies in the UK?

We have worked on some of the biggest and most transformative infrastructure projects across the UK and Ireland that address climate change, economic development, social inequality, adaptability and resiliency.

Waterbeach (pictured above) is one example where we are delivering an ambitious masterplan that will deliver 6,500 new homes, commercial space, schools, green transport networks and community facilities.

Stantec’s focus is to provide residents with opportunities to live healthier, active and more sustainable lifestyles. Realising this ambition has meant fundamentally changing the emphasis on how people move around the site and to other existing communities.

Waterbeach will be the first community of its size to incorporate Copenhagen style continuous footway crossings at the entrance to all housing parcels, providing a strong visual and physical indication that a transition is being made from a vehicle dominated space to a pedestrian and cycle dominated one. Encouraging a modal shift of travel behaviour allows investment to be focused on creating a great place, enhancing wellbeing and delivering social value, whilst creating a safer, more environmentally friendly community.

What value to do you bring to the local communities?

Stantec designs and work contribute to equality in society, delivering social value by building better places and communities - improving the lives of those who live, work and play in them. Stantec works to enhance quality of life, resilience, liveability, and safety.

Our UK Climate Change and Social Value Forum drives environmental and social action across the business, and tracks progress against our pledges.

We are committed to delivering benefits to our staff, and to wider communities through our programmes including our learning and development, work experience and apprenticeships, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I), Stantec in the Community, school’s engagement and STEM initiatives.

What are the biggest opportunities for growth in our industry in the next decade?

The public sector faces a decade of radical change, and with that brings opportunity.

The pandemic showed us how effective digital techniques could be in planning, and digital innovations are now seen by Government, and many practitioners, as providing a route to better planning outcomes. As a result, we quickly need to develop a better understanding about how the use of data can be a force for good in planning.

Stantec’s Better Places research programme with the University of Reading has been contemplating these issues. It builds on our Places First research, which set out to propose solutions to deliver better communities, fit for the future.

The Better Places research has been studying how data can enable social value factors to become a more integral part of evaluation, and how digital engagement and mapping could be used to improve engagement, and enable better decision making for and on behalf of planning authorities, investment organisations and developers. This is a great opportunity to drive change through digital transformation and one that Stantec are best positioned to support our public sector clients to achieve.

What has been the favourite project and the most challenging project?

It’s always great to see regeneration in action and Agar Grove is the largest council community investment programme scheme to date, as well as the largest Passivhaus scheme in the UK. This truly community-oriented project will deliver new high-quality homes for existing residents, it will also create rented, shared ownership, and private homes to make better spatial use of the estate to meet Camden's future housing needs.

The Agar Grove project has also been challenging. We are supporting the architect on engineering constraints, carrying out forensic engineering studies on the existing retained tower block and providing multi-disciplinary technical support for the overall master plan. This will create more liveable spaces between buildings, allowing people to move easily across, through and within the site.

When completed, the project will create a safe, high-quality family neighbourhood. Residents will have bright new homes with good space standards, built to deliver low heating bills and comfortable living.