10 June 2016

Roger Williams, Costain’s Network and Asset Manager at East Sussex Highways, recently chaired the Cold Comfort 2016, the UK’s largest dedicated annual winter maintenance event.

The conference brings together representatives from the public and private sectors to discuss how local authorities and their private sector partners can reduce service costs through innovation, shared services and learning from overseas best-practice.

This year the two-day event was held in Manchester and included guest speakers like Daniel Schacher, a Highway Maintenance Superintendent for the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities; Karin Harwood, Service Manager, Engineering Programmes, at Somerset County Council; and Stephen Hall, Acting Assistant Director for Highways Transport & Fleet at Cumbria County Council, who talked about managing a flooding event.

The conference attracts private sector contractors, highway engineers and managers, contract and fleet managers, technicians, resilience and civil contingency managers.

Roger chaired a panel discussion on how to make the most of winter service budgets, in particular looking at developing a workable strategy and making budgets go further. The event also included workshops from Richard Hayes, Chief Executive at the Institute of Highways Engineers, on training and development, and Richard Fenwick, Engineer – Highways Maintenance, Lincolnshire County Council, on how to make the best use of ‘Big Data’.

“The conference was a great opportunity to hear speakers’ experiences of dealing with extreme weather events and brought into focus the need for greater resilience to help prepare our communities and limit the impact to the local economy,” said Roger.

Costain, in joint venture with CH2M, is working with East Sussex County Council to deliver a comprehensive design, maintenance and improvement service covering over 2,000 miles of highways in the county.

For more information about the Cold Comfort Conference, please click on the link below:

Cold Comfort 2016

 

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