Client Name: Environment Agency
Location: UK, various locations (North-East Hub)
Services: Project and programme management; contract and cost management
Project Description: The European eel is a critically endangered species, the Eels (England and Wales) Regulations 2009, affords the regulator (the Environment Agency) powers to implement measures to assist in the recovery of eel populations; primarily eel passage at barriers to migration and eel screening at water abstractions. The Environment Agency are seeking to provide eel passage at nine gauging weirs in the northeast of England on the Tyne, Tees, Coquet, and Wear catchments. The eel regulation compliance feasibility study appraises the options for eel passage at the nine gauging weirs whilst maintain the gauging functionality, which is required for flood forecast and abstraction. The feasibility contract was awarded through the Ecological Services Framework and is managed by an AECOM project manager seconded into the Environment Agency through the Client Support Framework (PM resource).
Added value: Working alongside the eel technical specialist consultants, AECOM’s Project Manager has been seconded in to initiate, plan, monitor and control the study; overseeing the management of the appraisal of the various eel passage options and identification of the preferred solutions. Developing the project brief, and working closely with procurement and commercial teams, the study was successfully commissioned and mobilised in 2021. Facilitating an open dialogue and collaborative approach, significant improvements were made in developing the scope of works and undertaking early engagement with the different specialist services (fisheries, biodiversity & geomorphology (FBG), hydrometry and telemetry (H&T), and hydrology) to ensure a more aligned assessment of specialist requirements and site-specific constraints.