UKTram welcomes Waterman Aspen to growing member community

UKTram is pleased to welcome Waterman Aspen as its newest member, adding to the organisation's growing network of businesses supporting the development and delivery of light rail systems across the UK and Ireland. 

For more than 35 years, Waterman Aspen has provided engineering and technical specialists to major infrastructure projects across the country, working on a secondment basis to support public- and private-sector clients. The company operates across a wide range of transport and infrastructure sectors, including rail, highways, aviation and energy. 

Within the rail sector, Waterman Aspen's team includes civil engineers, designers, project managers and technicians with experience spanning station redevelopments, new line construction and major national programmes, including HS2. The company is currently supporting several light rail and very light rail initiatives, including Coventry Very Light Rail, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and the West Midlands Combined Authority. 

Explaining the decision to join UKTram, Waterman Aspen said: 

"We are supporting Coventry Very Light Rail, SYMCA and WMCA with our expert engineers in secondment. We are now delighted to join UKTram to formalise our experience in this sector, help spread best practice from our past projects and network with industry colleagues." 

The company sees collaboration and knowledge sharing as essential to supporting the successful delivery of future light rail systems across the UK. 

"For the country to have a tranche of successful new light rail systems, we need to ensure we are consistent in our approach to how we plan systems, design them and ultimately construct and operate them. "If we can standardise our approach, in line with the requirements of the Transport Planning Guidance, we can help build a multi-skilled and diverse professional engineering base across the country. We should not need to reinvent the wheel each time a city explores light rail. Instead, we should build on the decades of experience and expertise already available across the sector." 

Waterman Aspen is particularly interested in contributing to discussions around project management, engineering and the delivery of light rail schemes, while sharing lessons learned from its involvement across multiple systems and projects. 

A current focus for the company is its work on Coventry Very Light Rail, where Waterman Aspen provides a team of seconded project managers, engineers and technical specialists supporting the planning, design and construction delivery of the city centre demonstrator project. 

James Hammett, Managing Director of UKTram, welcomed the organisation to the membership community. He said:

"We're delighted to welcome Waterman Aspen to UKTram. Their experience supporting transport and infrastructure projects, combined with their involvement in emerging schemes, brings even more expertise to our community. We look forward to working together and benefiting from their insights as the sector continues to grow." 

To learn more about the organisations helping to shape the future of light rail, or to find out about becoming a UKTram member, visit our membership page.