We are genuinely delighted to announce that Kirsty Burwood has been promoted to Associate at the practice. Congratulations Kirsty!
Kirsty has been with P&M since 2014, helping to lead our Civil Engineering team as our transport specialist.
Here Kirsty tells us about her work at Seven Kings in Illford, what her promotion means to her and how she's filled her time during lockdown.
What does it mean to you to be an Associate at P&M?
I’m very happy to hold the position of Associate at a diverse, innovative, and successful practice, and I’m especially pleased as a woman in a predominantly male industry to reach this level. I hope by having this position I can increase our transport consultancy work portfolio and look forward to continuing to support our enthusiastic civil engineering team.
What's the most challenging project you're working on at the moment?
I’m working on a project to redevelop an existing car park on the Seven Kings high street in Ilford. The car park offers 150 spaces and the plan is to replace this with a mixed-use development providing 236 residential units, 900m2 work space, and 2,700m2 of a combined community and health hub.
The site will be car free due to its close proximity to the station and public amenities. This results in a loss of 150 car parking spaces currently used by the public.
The site was allocated for the redevelopment proposals in the Local Plan and so the council are satisfied with the car free design, as are TfL as this is in accordance with the London Plan. However, we must still show that the development will not have a detrimental effect on the surrounding streets or nearby businesses. This is where I come in!
We commissioned a parking survey of the existing car park and surrounding streets so we could analyse the existing parking stress. We concluded that the existing car park is actually underused, and the overspill can mostly be accommodated within the surrounding streets. There will need to be a shift towards sustainable travel by visitors to the high street, but that’s something we should all be aiming for. We produced a Travel Plan setting out the sustainable modes of travel available to residents, workers, and visitors of the mixed-use development.
What's been keeping you busy during lockdown?
At the start of lockdown 2020 I threw myself into getting fit and healthy. It was good to have a routine and a target to focus on. There was also lots of *highly intellectual* TV programmes to watch, such as ‘Married at First Sight Australia’!
Have you discovered a new skill in the past year?
Last year I had a chimney breast removed in my home. I reused the bricks from the chimney and built myself a BBQ!
Hand mixing sand and cement and laying bricks is difficult and tiring work! I hold judgement as to whether you can say this is a new skill though as I’m yet to use the BBQ, so it may not last very long… It looks pretty though!
What are you most looking forward to when things go back to normal?
Everything… how do I pick one? Seeing friends/family, going to the gym/swimming, going on holiday, hugging people and generally not being confined to my own home. If I had to pick, it would be seeing my 5- and 8-year-old niece and nephew who I haven’t seen in over a year now.
One thing I’m definitely not looking forward to is being squashed in like a sardine on a busy train!
