Egis has appointed Jamie Gleave as senior environmental impact assessment technical director for the UK, bringing more than 25 years’ experience across energy, transport and water infrastructure, including Wylfa Newydd nuclear power station and National Grid electricity transmission schemes. Gleave previously served as EIA technical director at AECOM, where he led its global EIA technical excellence practice and directed environmental work on the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet and M42 Junction 6 DCO schemes, acting as expert witness. He will work with UK–Ireland head of environment Afshan Rasheed to build Egis’s EIA, DCO and technical assurance capability.

United Utilities has been fined £900,000 after admitting five environmental permit breaches linked to a major raw sewage discharge on the Fylde coast in June 2023, following failures in its wastewater treatment and overflow control systems. The incident involved untreated effluent bypassing normal screening and settlement processes during storm conditions, leading to prolonged discharge through combined sewer overflows into coastal waters used for bathing. For civil and environmental engineers, the case reinforces regulatory scrutiny on stormwater storage capacity, real-time CSO monitoring, and resilience of ageing sewer networks under intense rainfall events.

EDF’s Hinkley Point C nuclear project has applied for permission to appeal a tribunal decision that would bring the 3.2GW plant under Environmental Information Regulations, forcing greater disclosure of environmental data. The ruling, won by campaigners, could require release of detailed monitoring on coastal impacts, cooling water abstraction and construction emissions from major works such as the 900m seawater intake tunnels. Designers, contractors and consultants on similar large infrastructure schemes may face tighter scrutiny over environmental modelling assumptions, baseline data and ongoing performance reporting.