A Perthshire man who is a president of an organisation that represents more than 300,000 engineers has called on the UK to learn lessons from China’s approach to public infrastructure projects.
John Thomson is president of the International Federation of Municipal Engineering (IFME), a global organisation which represents municipal and public works engineers.
He recently travelled to Beijing with an IFME delegation to meet with senior figures in the Chinese Government as part of a knowledge exchange.
Mr Thomson, from Bridge of Earn, said local councils and governments in this country should put engineers at the centre of planning and procurement decisions.
“China has a critical advantage in having professional engineers operating at the highest level within government,” he said.
“This should be a major lesson for the UK where engineers have been eliminated from many local authorities and central government.
“Cost effective procurement as well as detailed knowledge and understanding of such matters requires competent engineers on the client side.”
The IFME visit covered topics such as infrastructure, decarbonising transport, utilising digital technology, managing urban space and deliver quality management.
As well as visiting Beijing, the group visited Xi’an, a city with 13 million residents.
Mr Thomson added: “China represents an extreme example of the impacts of expanding urbanisation, but can inform other countries following a similar path just what that looks like and educate them how to address and mitigate the associated impacts.”
At the invitation of the Beijing Municipal Construction Group, the IFME visited several civil engineering sites including a new underground section of the expanding Beijing Metro and the new overhead highway development in Xi’an connecting the airport to the city centre.
Mr Thomson said: “We were overwhelmed by the warmth of welcome of our hosts and went away impressed with the professionalism of the engineers and sheer scale of the works being undertaken.”
The IFME World Congress to be held in the UK in 2021.
jimillar@thecourier.co.uk