Meet the Team: Simon Steele

Simon Steele

• Office: Antea Group UK
• Practice Area: Environmental Planning
• Areas of Expertise: Management and delivery of environmental and geotechnical projects, including contaminated land risk assessment, coal mining risk assessment, and remediation supervision and validation.
• About Me in 140 Characters: In my work life, I’m a Geo-Environmental specialist with over 18 years of experience working in the consulting industry. At home, I’m a husband, and dad to two energetic children (aged 6 & 10), and in my free time at the moment, I’m mostly trying to finish off my self-built campervan conversion!

Get to Know Simon...

Favorite Thing about Being an Environmental Planning Practitioner:
Working with amazing colleagues and clients on varied and interesting projects across the UK and internationally.  There is always a new and interesting challenge to solve for our clients. One week I could be advising on the decommissioning, remediation and redevelopment of a chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, the next looking at sink holes forming at the surface adjacent to electricity pylons.

What is the most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?
One interesting project that comes to mind is one I worked on during my early career years.  The client was redeveloping a former golf course into warehousing. The site posed many challenges because it was located in a valley directly onto weathered coal measures bedrock with three geological faults; springs; buried culverts; an active railway tunnel and air shaft; two landfills (rail tunnel spoil and 1960s landfill); shallow worked coal seam voids; numerous abandoned mine shafts; and a well!  This may have been back in 2007 but still remember it well.

What’s your favorite part of your job?
Undertaking coal mining risk assessments (hunting for mine shafts!) by studying coal mine abandonment plans in the Coal Authority archives along with physical onsite searches (drilling or direct excavation) to verify the presence or absence of abandoned mine shafts.

If someone at a party asks what you do, how do you respond?
I tell them I dig holes in the ground and play with mud! Then I follow this up with, investigating the ground and identifying contamination and geotechnical conditions to help with planning and development.

Just for Fun...

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A carpenter!

What was your first job?
My first jobs were a paper round and working on a farm – I was driving tractors before I could drive a car.

What is on the top of your bucket list?
Winning the lottery! Not statistically likely at 1 in 45 million, but should I win, I would travel the world with family and friends.