Network Rail’s Southern region has appointed Lucy McAuliffe as its permanent Sussex route director to lead the operation of one of the busiest rail networks in the country.

McAuliffe was appointed acting route director last December following two years as Southern region’s stations and security director, and since then has been overseeing efforts to improve reliability on the Sussex route.

Prior to this, she developed her leadership experience right across the transport industry including in bus, coach, rail and aviation - from managing stations to working for Network Rail High Speed before moving to lead signalling, control and incident response operations.

She also worked at Gatwick Airport as head of passenger security before returning to Network Rail’s Southern region in 2021 as stations and security director. 

Network Rail’s Sussex route is among the busiest and most congested in the country, carrying 3,200 trains every weekday. The route includes the Brighton Main Line and provides a direct rail link to Gatwick Airport, the country’s second busiest international airport.

She said: “I’m delighted to have been permanently appointed Sussex route director to oversee this critical and brilliant part of the railway network. 

“The route plays a key part in connecting passengers from London to Brighton and across the south-east of England as well as supporting commuters, leisure travellers and critical freight services.”

Kier has strengthened its construction division with two key senior appointments 

David Rowsell has been appointed as managing director of Kier Construction London and Cheryl Parsons as regional director for Kier Construction Southern as the group’s construction business creates two new and distinct business units. 

Rowsell joins Kier from Morgan Sindall, where he was the Northern Home Counties area director. He brings 25 years of construction experience to Kier and has overseen a wide range of private and public sector projects in the capital, including developer led commercial schemes, large refurbishment programmes for parliamentary estates and numerous community projects through several key public sector frameworks. 

Under his leadership, Kier Construction London will focus on further expanding its rapidly growing private sector offering to complement its already strong public sector base.  

Parsons joined Kier eight years ago and has worked with the regions to significantly grow Kier Construction’s healthcare sector, including leading the emergency Nightingale Hospital Project Management Office. 

Her 23 years’ experience in the construction industry spans across private and public sectors; leading on preconstruction and delivery of projects in sectors including defence, justice and higher education. 

She will bring this experience to support the successful growth of the Southern business.

Senior promotions at multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy, Clancy Consulting, have been announced which reinforce a confident future for the UK-wide business. 

Daniel Singh, Steve Dewberry and Gordon Megahy have been promoted to board director.

Since joining as divisional director in the Manchester office in August 2021, Singh has showcased a great talent for working collaboratively with clients and brings a forward-thinking approach to leading the civil and structural engineering team. 

Successfully managing a busy division, he has secured some landmark projects, in particular large complex developments across the Greater Manchester region which are cutting edge in terms of integrating sustainable design.

Back in March 2020, Dewberry joined the business overseeing the MEP Manchester team as divisional director and has been leading demanding projects across both public and private sectors. Bringing extensive knowledge and skills around sustainability and decarbonisation, he specialises in taking a creative approach to minimising a building’s environmental impact, whilst providing the most effective technical solution.

Megahy joined Clancy’s Glasgow office as part of the acquisition of DBM Consultants in 2021 and he has been championing structural timber frame solutions to clients across Scotland, and further afield, ever since. 

This announcement follows Chris Acton taking the reins as Clancy’s new CEO earlier this year and shaping exciting plans for the next chapter of the consultancy firm.

Meinhardt UK has appointed a new technical director in the West Midlands.

The global multidisciplinary engineering consultancy has hired experienced technical director and project manager, Richard James, to lead the formation of a new team at its regional headquarters at Two Snow Hill, Birmingham.  

The new technical highways and infrastructure team will be responsible for the delivery of high-level technical input into Meinhardt UK’s expanding portfolio of international projects, which includes significant developments throughout the Middle East. It is expected to create up to 10 new jobs.

James has more than 30 years’ industry experience in various senior management roles in the public and public sectors. They include technical director positions with environmental consulting company WSP, and engineering consultancy Arcadis, during which he delivered multidisciplinary projects in Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

More recently he oversaw the construction of an 800-unit housing development in the East Midlands on behalf of a leading residential property developer.

He said: “The opportunity to create a new team and deliver significant projects in the UK and internationally is hugely exciting. Meinhardt UK has a strong global presence and an outstanding reputation and offers the challenge of working with clients of different nationalities and cultures. Having delivered large-scale projects in the Middle East, I look forward to using my experience and leading a new team of technical specialists to support me.”