Meet the team
Andrew W Walker BEng (Hons)
Managing Director
Andrew has over 25 year’s experience within the construction sector, most notably civil engineering, demolition, remediation and housing. Founding Urban Regen in 2001, and combining his technical and business development skills, the Company now offers fully considered and integrated remediation solutions to the development sector. Andrew has a degree in Civil Engineering with experience in the management of large scale civil engineering projects with tier 1 contractors before moving into the delivery of remediation and civils services for the development sector.
Andrew is renowned for his hands on approach and his genuine attitude towards business and partnering. This business ethos is the core of our Company philosophy ensuring we retain high standards of client satisfaction and product delivery.
Paul Johnston
Director
Paul is the focus of our work winning team, responsible for the delivery of tender development and delivery, and generally the first point of contact with most of our clients. His philosophy of open dialogue to ensure tenders are tailored to provide our clients with their specific requirements. Paul routinely advises on alternative / commercially beneficial solutions as a variation to the initial brief, providing Clients with technical support along with potential programme and cost benefit.
Paul’s background comes from the main stream civil engineering sector, before joining Urban Regen as a Project Manager, and his experience on site is key to the delivery of our robust, all risk, tender delivery.
Gary Owen
Contracts Director
Responsible for the delivery of our projects at site level, Gary has circa 20 years experience within the construction and remediation sectors. Joining the Company in 2013, initially as Project Manager on a large remediation scheme in Lancaster, Gary’s natural drive and work ethic soon saw him promoted to Contracts Manager.
With experience of contract management of schemes up to £20M in value, Gary’s role of Contracts Director sees him responsible for the management of our site operational and technical teams, to ensure the technical and commercial delivery of all our projects in accordance with our ISO 9001 & 14001 Management systems, and in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.
Josh Forrest
Commercial Director
Josh has 20 years’ experience working in the civil engineering industry, previously for Eric Wright Civil Engineering and Bethell Construction.
With experience on a variety of contracts including demolition, bulk earthworks, infrastructure and highway & structures schemes, his commercial approach is to establish excellent supply chain relationships, in order to provide best value internally and to Urban Regen’s clients.
Working closely with the accounts department, he is involved in monitoring the performance of the business, and then implementing the required commercial strategies, ensuring costs are managed effectively, by controlling budgets and close monitoring of forecast final positions for each project.
Chris Bithell
Contracts Director (Civils)
Leading the Civils team within Urban Regen, Chris brings nearly 30 years of technical and commercial experience to the Company, with justifiably strong working relationships within the residential development sector. With a driven ethos of delivering high-quality work, Chris is responsible for all work winning and project delivery, whilst coordinating operations with the wider site preparation operations to create a full delivery package, providing Developers with enhanced development programme opportunities.
With over 10 years working for national residential developers, within an estimating and commercial role, Chris moved into the civils sector 15 years ago, delivering high-quality site infrastructure and groundworks services, with responsibilities up to Managing Director level.
His ability to produce high quality work in conjunction with practical problem solving with delivery within agreed timescales and budgets, has already reaped benefits for a wide range of new and existing clients.
Dave Brackley
Land & Development Director
A qualified Civil Engineer David has over 20 years’ experience in the Residential Development sector. Having previously worked in the a number of the UK’s largest house builders, David’s focus has been on the delivery of developments on Brownfield sites, having brought forward challenging projects across the Northwest from inner city regeneration in Manchester and Liverpool to the redevelopment of landfills, factories and colleges across the region.
Latterly David headed up various functions, before ultimately leading the Miller Homes business in the Northwest. It is this broad development experience that he brings to Urban Regen, where he will be responsible for the acquisition of site complex brownfield sites, securing planning consents and delivery of these sites to our development partners.
Ian Rajch
Contracts Director (Asbestos)
Responsible for the pricing and management of all asbestos mitigation works carried out by the Company, Ian has over 20 years experience within the asbestos industry, from Asbestos Operative through to Managing Director level, for both notifiable and non-notifiable works.
His expertise includes carrying out asbestos surveys and the preparation of industry-standard reports, planning and management of large-scale licenced and unlicenced asbestos mitigation works, both pre-demolition and with asbestos contamination within soils, and the coordinated removal of all asbestos wastes, throughout the UK.
The addition of Ian and his team, broadens the capabilities of the Company within the demolition, remediation and site preparation sector, presenting our Clients with a broader one stop approach to their brownfield development issues.
Brett Carter
Plant & Production Director
Joining the business in 2016 as the Company’s Demolition Manager, Brett comes with over 25 years working in the specialist demolition sector including high reach operations. CCDO, CPCS certified, and with further relevant qualifications within the demolition sector, Brett was responsible for the coordination of many of our high-profile demolition schemes, including the former chemical silos at Winnington and long-term projects in Upper Heyford and Bordon.
Quickly taking on both a Contracts Manager role on a number of demolition based schemes, he also manages our in-house fleet of earthworks and demolition plant, responsible for maintenance, procurement and operative training.
His role as Plant & Production Director sees him continuing with these duties whilst supporting the Operational Teams to ensure production and output delivery, and meet contract programme requirements.
Ben Thomas
Managing Consultant
Ben joined Urban Regen following a 20 year career in contaminated land consultancy bringing with him a wealth of experience in the design, implementation and verification of Brownfield remediation projects at all scales. Ben is a Geologist and Environmental Geochemist, a Chartered Environmentalist (MCIWEM), and has demonstrated his competency as defined under the Environment Agency: Land Contamination Risk Management procedures through his qualifications under the leading industry professional registration schemes (SiLC1804a, SQP0093, QP016).
Ben supports the Work-Winning, Commercial, Technical and Operational Teams at all levels within the business, managing risk and helping to fulfil Urban Regen’s commitment to providing cost-effective and sustainable development solutions for our partners. Ben works collaboratively and directly with our clients staff and their professional advisors, Regulators and other stakeholders to ensure the safe and productive delivery of projects.
Darrell Woodrow
Engineering Manager
Darrell joined the business in 2010 as Project Manager and Engineering Surveyor, immediately qualifying to NVQ 6 in Demolition whilst establishing the engineering standards for site control, setting out, GPS control and drawing standards for inclusion in reports to be issued to Clients.
From 2010 to 2016 Darrell was site based on a number of high profile schemes including Winnington Urban Village and Upper Heyford Former Air Base, Bicester, managing complex demolition and remediation schemes. This was in tandem with the coordination of engineering services across the wider company.
From 2017 Darrell’s role has become more Head Office based, setting both engineering training programmes and procedures, formatting asbuilt surveys and completion drawings, in tandem with his current responsibilities for the coordination of decommissioning, environmental management, regulator and planning liaison, in conjunction with the technical delivery for the Company’s own land bank, prior to remediation and onward transfer for development by others.