Hannah Clark CIHT SW committee chair opened the day with a fun presentation on what is a transport planner according to AI! Some of the responses were quite amusing. It highlighted the important job that we do, but perhaps the lack of understanding of what it is we do from the general public.
 
Hannah Shrimpton highlighted the excellent work Peninsula Transport do in advocating transport investment on a regional scale and the challenges Subnational Transport Bodies face and are attempting to overcome. More so impressive with the size of their team which consists of only four members of staff!
 
Hannah was followed by Rhiannon Evans, regional manager at Active Travel England who provided a presentation outlining what ATE does, their ambitions for the future to increase walking, wheeling and cycling and the levels of investment proposed for 2025. Rhiannon also highlighted ATE’s suite of tools and gave a demonstration of good examples to overcome comment constraints. 

Jason Humm provided an insightful summary of the south west infrastructure partnership and the work he and his team have been doing at GCC, whilst highlighting the budgetary constraints authorities have to work within.

Mike Morgan and Lidia Derossi represented the event sponsor AECOM and gave a fascinating overview of their Liveable Neighbourhoods project. They highlighted the importance of changing perspective, moving away from a focus of movement of vehicles to how we can inspire people to move and become active. They emphasised the power of taking clients and stakeholders on site to discuss proposals and demonstrating real work examples. Lidia then highlighted the importance of design, maintenance and adoption and how water and planting can be seen as an asset through rain gardens and tree planting to create water storage and shade. Lidia also demonstrated the need to do something as doing nothing can often have a greater cost in the long-term, especially in our fight against climate change.

CIHT President Glenn Lyons then took centre stage with his high-speed version of the CIHT Climates workshops. This was a fascinating demonstration of the climate struggle we face in our industry and the work required to make meaningful change, along with a survey of how we all feel we are doing currently and where we think we will be in 2035, a quite sobering but highly recommended workshop!

Lauren Allington, SW Emerging Professionals Group co-chair rounded off the day with an impassioned presentation about youth engagement in transport planning, and how young people are often overlooked or not fairly represented in engagement, yet this age group are often most impacted by decisions made today for their futures.

Finally, thank you to all of our wonderful exhibitors Tracsis, Streetwise, RSTA, FCL, Rappor, Waterman Aspen, Brightly Software, FYLD, Asphalt Group and to all of those who attended.
 
Want to get more involved with the CIHT South West? Please contact southwest@ciht.org.uk.

Entry for the CIHT South West Awards 2025 and CIHT South West Emerging Professional Presentation Competition is now open! Find out more today to get industry recognition and celebrate the successes in Highways and Transportation in the South West.