Built Environment Journal

What new guidance means for dealing with waste wood
What new guidance means for dealing with waste wood

BUILT ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL

What new guidance means for dealing with waste wood

Before inspecting a building due to be refurbished or demolished, surveyors in the UK will need to be aware of new guidance about identifying and testing potentially hazardous timbers

Charles Law 19 March 2024

Updated facade guidance aims to clarify material use
Updated facade guidance aims to clarify material use

BUILT ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL

Updated facade guidance aims to clarify material use

Comment: With changes to the Building Regulations on combustible materials in England having proved confusing, two industry associations offer up-to-date guidance for the construction sector

David Metcalfe 12 March 2024

Why sustainability must go beyond ticking boxes
Why sustainability must go beyond ticking boxes

BUILT ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL

Why sustainability must go beyond ticking boxes

Opinion: While achieving net zero may seem a challenging prospect, building surveyors can bring a lot of their existing skill sets to bear in making the built environment more sustainable

James Baker FRICS 05 March 2024

How my career evolved as building standards emerged
How my career evolved as building standards emerged

BUILT ENVIRONMENT JOURNAL

How my career evolved as building standards emerged

Although building control in Scotland has changed significantly over the past six decades, the willingness to collaborate, adapt and influence have been central to one surveyor's work

Bob Renton FRICS 27 February 2024

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RICS Built Environment Journal Editorial Advisory Group members

 

John is a chartered building control surveyor and associate member of the Institution of Fire Engineers. Having worked in construction throughout his career, he is now a regulatory specialist at LABC. He advises members and industry stakeholders on all building control matters from technical issues to consultations on regulatory reform and changes to our profession.

 

James is a chartered building surveyor, founder and managing director of Invise Ltd. Having worked across the UK for various private practices, he has experience of managing construction projects from as low as £10k up to £9m, acting as contract administrator, employer's agent, and project manager. In addition, James has considerable experience of providing building surveying services including technical due diligence, condition surveys, schedules of condition, party wall surveying, dilapidations, and reinstatement cost assessments. With many years of experience working in a consultancy role, James is also an APC assessor, coach, and mentor. 

 

Andrea is a chartered building surveyor, partner, and national head of client solutions at Knight Frank Australia. This is a role which encompasses the project management, building consultancy, workplace, town planning and tenant representation teams. Her primary focus is working with clients to provide technical strategies to their real estate goals, and her work also covers combustible cladding matters in Australia. She has a specific interest in technical advisory relating to pre-lease industrial, is active in several RICS guidance note groups and passionate about mentoring and growing the next generation of talent.

 

James is a chartered building surveyor and fellow member of the RICS. He is an experienced expert witness in construction, building defects and legal disputes. He is particularly skilled in listed buildings and heritage property.  James operates across a range of commercial and residential service sectors within the built environment including dilapidations, acquisition surveys, project works, reinstatement cost assessments, defect analysis, pathology, strategic asset management advice, party wall services and schedules of condition. James is the youngest fellow member of the RICS globally and is the managing director and founder of Adept Building Consultancy.

 

John has developed a specialism in energy efficiency and building pathology. He is involved in the development of standards and guidance which includes leading in the development of BS7913 and co-authoring BSI standards for retrofit being a member of the steering groups producing PAS2030, PAS2035 and PAS2038. John is also a part-time educationalist which includes his professor role at the University of Wales Trinity St David, and has developed with CITB’s National Construction College the only short course in retrofitting older buildings that achieves a qualification. Prior to joining Edwards Hart in 2014, John was assistant director of Cadw.

 

Alan is an associate professor in building conservation, low-carbon design, and construction technology at Heriot-Watt University. His research and teaching cover the broad areas of traditional and low-carbon building materials and construction technologies; Historic Building Information Modelling; building pathology and deterioration; building and community resilience to climate change; ‘green’ maintenance; building conservation philosophy and construction and engineering pedagogy. Alan has attained cumulative research funding as principal investigator and chief investigator totalling £1.14million (full economic costing) across 23 projects from major funding councils including EPSRC, AHRC, TSB, RSE, RAE and British Council. Dissemination of these projects and his broader research portfolio has led to 80+ published outputs. Prior to entering academia, Alan spent 10 years working in industry.

 

Jon is a chartered building control surveyor, who has worked in the building control profession for 30 years with experience in both local authority and approved inspector sectors. As an experienced area manager at NHBC he oversees service delivery, technical risk management and customer relationships.

 

Ben is a chartered building surveyor, associate director at Watts Group, based in Bristol. His expertise lies in design and specification, contract administration, technical due diligence, and defect rectification with a particular interest in BIM and sustainability. He has handled diverse projects for a range of prestigious clients, and has experience with an array of different property types including prime office buildings, industrial estates and hotels, across the South West of England. He has also led APC training and mentored graduates.

 

Brad is a chartered building surveyor who has worked across many sectors, and now specialises in residential defect surveying and reporting. He also takes a keen interest in emerging sustainability technologies.

 

Cleo is a chartered building control surveyor with 26 years' experience. She has worked for Oxford City Council for 21 years, where she is currently a senior building control surveyor. She works on a wide range of properties from houses, student accommodation, academic buildings, and hospitals to multimillion-pound projects including a shopping centre redevelopment.

 

Ian is a chartered building surveyor and associoate of Ridge and Partners, specialising in landlord and tenants and expert witness matters. Ian is a co-editor and co-author of the Watts Pocket Handbook, an industry leading guide to commercial property surveying. He has previously qualified as a non-domestic energy assessor and takes a special interest in sustainability matters from a lease perspective.  Ian’s experience includes acting as joint appointed expert for the Court and he has given evidence on a number of matters.

 

 

Andrew is a chartered building surveyor, qualified asset manager and equity partner at national multidisciplinary consultancy Baily Garner, leading its building surveying group in London. He specialises in existing built assets across a number of sectors, with expertise ranging from major refurbishment to estate regeneration. He is also an APC assessor, and has been heavily involved with establishing Baily Garner's development programme for school leavers, apprentices, year-out placements, and graduates.

 

Eilidh is a senior building surveyor in Cushman & Wakefield's project and development services department in London, where she performs a wide range of commercial building surveying services. She specialises in technical due diligence for investors, lenders, and purchasers, as well as advising on dilapidations matters for landlords and tenants. In addition, she also has experience as a contract administrator and development monitor on construction projects of various sizes and complexity.

 

Mat is a partner and TFT's head of environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) and sustainability. He is a chartered building surveyor and a chartered project management surveyor with nearly 30 years of working with many of the leading property companies, investors, developers, and asset managers.  Mat's areas of expertise include sustainable development, minimum energy efficiency standards and net zero carbon.  He is a vice chair of British Property Federation's sustainability committee.

 

 

Alan is a chartered building surveyor with 33 years' experience within the building standards system in Scotland having worked within Glasgow City Council and South Lanarkshire Council. Since May 2022, Alan has undertaken the role of director of the Building Standards Hub. The role of the hub is to support local authority verifiers and wider industry stakeholders to strengthen the overall system in Scotland. Alan is also technical director of Local Authority Building Standards Scotland and is a previous chair of this organisation, he has also participated on numerous Scottish government working groups covering a range of topics.

 

Chris is a chartered building surveyor accredited in historic building conservation. He has been involved in all aspects of building conservation for most of his professional life, and is driven by an enthusiasm for historic buildings and an empathy with those who own them. The work of his practice has been recognised at the UK and European levels.

 

John is a chartered building control surveyor with more than 20 years Building Regulations experience dealing with commercial and domestic clients. He is group business development director at Assent Building Control. Specialities include commercial and large-scale domestic developments. Building Regulations Approved Documents, and specialist areas include BS:9999, Approved Document B, L and E and sports ground safety.

 

Sophie is a chartered building surveyor, specialising in refurbishment, condition surveys, contract administration, and design and specification. She started her career as a building control apprentice in 2008 and then worked in social housing. She joined Atkins in 2016, where she is now a client lead for a multidisciplinary team taking a range of projects from conception through to completion. Sophie has developed her own safety footwear for women in collaboration with Amblers Safety, called the Sophie Collection.

 

Sam has worked as a building surveyor in a private practice consultancy, both as an employee and as a company owner, and has a wide breadth of building surveying experience. He joined RICS in March 2022 and is one of the senior specialists in the professional practice and development department, responsible for the building surveying and building control disciplines. He is also the staff lead for the Conservation Steering Group and Dilapidations Steering Group.

 

Jay is a chartered building surveyor specialising in technical due diligence, leading the service at TFT in Bristol. He also specialises in investor monitoring on behalf of property funds. He is an APC assessor and a member of RICS’ global sector advisory group for building surveying, as well as being an enthusiastic board member of charity in the South West of England, seeking to end youth homelessness.

 

Chris is a chartered building surveyor and director at Savills. He specialises in technical due diligence and development monitoring services, principally within the commercial sectors. Within this specialism, he has also ascertained a strong understanding of environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters.

 

Gabriella is both a chartered building surveyor and certified historic buildings professional, being accredited in historic building conservation. She also has over 20 years’ experience in the architectural conservation field and lectures on conservation issues nationally and internationally. Gabriella has project managed various small to large-scale conservation projects at English Heritage, Harrow School, and Historic England. She also has experience researching the history of buildings and writing conservation plans, having contributed to one for Historic Royal Palaces, as well as one for the Dean & Canons of Windsor Castle.

 

Gary has more than 40 years' experience in construction and real estate, specialising in building surveying and fire safety. Since joining the RICS staff in 2007, he has been leading the professional groups and latterly the organisation's response to the Grenfell Tower fire working with UK government and devolved nations, and leads international building safety initiatives including skills, training, and guidance for members. As global buildings head in professional groups, he liaises with and advises governments and chartered surveyors on international standards development, building standards, and education and training. He is both founder and chair of the International Fire Safety Standards (IFSS) UN-supported coalition, and chair of the CTBUH fire and life safety committee. He is a member of both the CIC and CLC building safety expert panels, and a member of the CROSS fire expert panel.

 

Adrian Tagg has more than 20 years of experience as a practitioner and is currently the lead for building surveying in the School of Construction Management and Engineering at the University of Reading, where he became an associate professor in 2019. He lectures on building pathology, commercial surveying practices and inclusive environments. His research interests include technical due diligence, commercial surveying, and accessibility in the built environment. He is also founder of consultancy Tech DD Ltd.

 

Terry is a retired chartered building surveyor, who was the sole director of a small practice carrying out commercial surveying and architectural work. He specialised mainly in architectural work and carried out new build, refurbishment, and extension work for major commercial and public body clients. His other specialisms were dilapidation and maintenance survey work.

 

Jonathan is a chartered building surveyor and certified principal designer specialising in dilapidations and projects, with a particular focus on delivering project led client solutions within the science and technology sector. A previous winner of the RICS Young Surveyor of the Year award, Jonathan acts for a variety of clients across a wide range of commercial portfolios including offices, laboratory, research and development, logistics and industrial property.