Fellows Environmental attended a seminar on geophysical techniques at the University of Liverpool on Wednesday 16^th October. The seminar, run by RSK Consultants, was very well attended with RSK providing a generous number of staff to lead workshops and give presentations. The workshops were taken outside in a nearby area of open space and gave all attendees an overview of the main techniques, equipment and methodologies used for non-intrusive ground investigations with an opportunity to have a go with the equipment and see the live-results when using such equipment in the field.

Presentations centred around the importance of post-processing following the initial work in the field and a common theme all day was distinguishing between what is “fact” and what can be implied from the results by an experienced geophysicist. The value of thorough planning for an investigation was illustrated as was the importance of knowing when to use geophysical investigations, intrusive testing or a mixture of both.

Overall, the day-long seminar was one of the better events Fellows Environmental has attended with a good range of personnel present and a very good combination of hands-on learning with explanations from experts in the field.

Fellows Environmental attended the CIWM New Member Network visit to Shanks’ Hespin Wood MBT facility on Monday 30^th September. Nick Fellows, as part of the CIWM North West Centre Council, had a large part in organising the trip and was pleased that interest in the event was high. The event capacity, set by Shanks, was met within days of the event details being published with a range of new and more experienced CIWM members attending.

The event itself was a success with a presentation about Shanks’ facilities and activities as a whole before being given a detailed description of the Hespin Wood facility operations. Following the presentation, the attendees were taken around the MBT facility to see the technology in action and had the opportunity to ask plenty of questions about the largely automated processes and the general running of the facility. To finish off, everyone was taken on a tour of the adjacent landfill site which gave a good overview of the rest of the local waste infrastructure and how it all fits together.