SoPHE Dinner

Attended by more than 200 people and supported by the SoPHE Industrial Group, the event raised more than £1,500 for the charity WaterAid.

SoPHE provides a higher profile and focus for public health engineers within CIBSE, and a higher status to public health engineers in building services and the construction industry. Membership is gained through both qualifications and experience, and high standards are maintained in the joining process. The designatory letters for SoPHE are becoming ever more recognised and demanded in the industry.

Chairman Martin Shouler spoke about some of the highlights of the year and thanked all those involved – the industrial members for their support, and the committee who work so hard to provide a newsletter, membership panel and technical CPD evenings.

SoPHE was involved in an event to look at sustainable water management at the GLA with the deputy mayor of London. She acknowledged that the discipline has a full role to play in the action against climate change.

With this role comes responsibility, and SoPHE continues to work to develop the technical understanding of the discipline with a full programme of technical evenings and the development of a degree in public health engineering at Greenwich University in partnership with the IPHE.

North West regional activity continues under the strong leadership of Kate Longley. SoPHE is now contracted directly by government and regulation and standard setters. This year SoPHE has worked with BSI to revise BS 6700, the “bible” of water services.

“We can rise to the occasion – be bold and step up to the mark,” said Shouler. “We, as public health engineers, need to muster the tools, techniques and knowledge needed to rise to the challenge of the future”.

Alan Watson, founder member and first chairman of SoPHE was awarded the CIBSE bronze medal in recognition of his services to public health engineering.

• Water is becoming more and more important because of climate change. SoPHE believes that everyone should have access to clean drinking water, and was pleased to have Giresh Menon, technical director of overseas projects at WaterAid, as guest speaker.

He described the work of the WaterAid projects that transform communities, and said that public health engineering is the key to achieving cleaner water worldwide, but that not all countries recognise the importance of the profession. SoPHE members worldwide would be instrumental in ensuring that clean water for all becomes a reality.

It is WaterAid’s 25th Anniversary this year, and in that time it has been responsible for achieving clean water for nine million people worldwide. It will be the International Year of Sanitation in 2008, and WaterAid will be concentrating on helping the 2.6 billion people in the world that have no sanitation at the moment.

For information on how to support WaterAid, please go to www.wateraid.org.