Team

David Littlemore has over twenty years experience in dam engineering, engineering geology and geotechnical engineering covering principally the study, planning, detailed design and supervision of remedial works of existing embankment and concrete dams. His work has also involved undertaking slope stability and seepage modelling and analyses of embankment dams, the design of flood alleviation and river enhancement schemes, pipework and valve rehabilitation, reservoir discontinuances, and earthworks operations together with all aspects of planning, design and supervision of ground investigations. David Littlemore is currently appointed to the Supervising Engineers Panel and currently undertakes the role of Supervising Engineer for 25 reservoirs throughout England and Wales for a variety of Undertakers. David formed Stillwater Associates in 2008.

Hermann Stehle is based in the main office in Reigate, Surrey, and has over 11 years’ experience in reservoir engineering. He spent five of those years in the employment of the South African Department of Water and Sanitation where he was involved in statutory reservoir safety inspections and the design, supervision, and management of reservoir remedial works.  Since moving to the UK in 2018, Hermann has been working on a variety of projects, including the design and management of reservoir safety remedial works, reservoir discontinuance, reservoir safety risk assessments, feasibility studies, flood studies, drawdown assessments, and emergency planning. Hermann currently fulfils the role of Supervising Engineer for a diverse portfolio of reservoirs across the UK and the Isle of Man and his experience in relation to reservoir safety spans a wide variety of dam types, including concrete arch, concrete gravity, rock-fill and earth-fill embankment dams.

Jonathan Highfield is a Chartered Civil Engineer with 33 years’ experience working in the UK water industry, mostly with a major privatised water and sewerage Undertaker. His experience includes the supervision of statutory and non-statutory reservoirs, and the design, procurement, contract administration and project management of water industry capital projects.

Jonathan was first appointed to the Supervising Engineer’s Panel (under the Reservoirs Act 1975) in 2007, and has Supervised a large number of privately and publicly owned reservoirs of various types including concrete buttress, concrete arch, earth embankment (clay and concrete cores), masonry and concrete gravity, flood storage, non-impounding terminal and pumped storage earth embankment dams, and reinforced concrete service reservoirs.

Peter Mason is a highly experienced civil engineer with specific expertise on dams, hydropower, canals and tunnels and associated works from conceptual through to detailed design stages, including integrated Safety, Risk and Value Engineering Opportunity Analyses, also Safety and Due Diligence Inspections and Asset Evaluations. Specific expertise on; applied hydraulics, structural analyses, concrete technology, surface and underground power stations, RCC/Hardfill dams. Named by the USBR as the state-of-the-art author on plunge pool scour downstream of dam spillways and quoted by the ASCE as authoring a “key reference” in the hydraulic design of stilling basins.

Chairman of the Board of Management (BOM) for the US$ 3.3 billion, 969 MW, Neelum Jhelum Hydro Project in Pakistan, also BOM Member for other major hydropower and irrigation developments in Pakistan, including over 350 km of major canals. Chief Civil Engineer on the 75 MW Hydropower works of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Project Engineer for the 122 m high Victoria Arch Dam in Sri Lanka. Responsible for feasibility studies, contract documentation and design for major hydraulic works in Asia, Africa and South America, also advice, inspection visits and asset evaluations as a Named Expert in Africa, Asia, Australia and North and South America. Advice to Contractors, Owners, Funding Agencies and Prospective Purchasers with lectures and technology transfer to Client's Engineers. Periods of residence in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Member of various National and International Committees and of the All-Reservoirs Panel of Engineers under the UK Reservoirs Act. Author of numerous publications on named specialities.

Richard Smith has over thirty years experience in operation and maintenance of existing embankment dams. His work has also involved project management of reservoir safety works required under the Reservoirs Act, pipework and valve rehabilitation and reservoir discontinuances. Richard has been on the Supervising Engineers Panel since 1991 and currently undertakes the role of Supervising Engineer for 20 reservoirs throughout the North of England.

Rhys Coombs is a chartered engineer with more than 12 years experience working with dams and reservoirs in the UK and overseas. Rhys was appointed to the Supervising Engineers panel for England and Wales in 2021. He is a specialist in UK flood hydrology and complex hydraulic modelling, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and shallow water equation (SWE) packages. He is also an expert user of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), dense data processing (photo data, TIF data, LIDAR, 3D data formats) and automation/machine learning (Matlab, Python, Keras, Tensorflow).

Chris Peck has twenty years experience in leading and managing multidisciplinary teams on reservoir projects. These positions involved coordinating all engineering activities from identifying issues, through option assessment and design to construction.

His work also involved the design of pumped raw water storage and potable service reservoirs and pipelines, managing design, technical advice, general management and supervision

Chris Peck is currently appointed to the Supervising Engineers Panel and undertaking the role of Supervising Engineer for numerous reservoirs in NE London, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.

Frank Lawson has 40 years’ experience in dam engineering, operation and maintenance of existing embankment, masonry and concrete dams and concrete service reservoirs.  He has been involved with feasibility, design and construction of flood alleviation and river enhancement schemes, including abandonment, remedial, operations and maintenance work to reservoirs, pipework and valve rehabilitation.  His career has involved working for water companies and consultants including Yorkshire Water and Arup.  He was appointed to the Supervising Engineer Panel at its inception and now, following retirement from the Panel, he acts as a technical reviewer of other Supervising Engineer’s work, and reports on non-statutory lakes.

Tom has 25 years’ experience in the civil, geotechnical and environmental engineering fields with expertise in earth and concrete dam design, inspection, risk assessment, geotechnical investigation, tendering and construction supervision. Other areas of experience include flood hydrology and hydraulics, geotechnical engineering and structural assessment.  Tom is an All Reservoirs Panel Engineer and over the past 20 years has worked solely in the dam engineering field in the UK and Australia managing many large water supply, flood storage and tailings dam projects involving design of new dams and remedial / upgrade works on existing dams, and has worked on projects in the UK, Australia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Mark is a Chartered Civil Engineer with over 35 years experience in civil and infrastructure working for both developers and consultants in development infrastructure taking projects from concept to completion. Subsequent to becoming a registered Principal Designer under the Construction (Design and management) Regulations 2015 he has performed this role for variety of clients on a diverse selection of projects.

Since 2009 he has been involved in the management, investigation, planning, design and construction of reservoir upgrade works for a wide variety of reservoirs. 

Mark is member of the ICE led Panel Engineers Committee (PEC) set up to liaise between the reservoir community and the Government following the Bamforth Review.

Halil has over seven years of experience including two years in the UK as a civil / dam engineer in the reservoir industry. Awarded MSc degree regarding monitoring of earth dams. Dealing with dam safety evaluations of concrete and earth and rock fill dams. The ability to perform settlement, seepage, static, slope stability and time history dynamic analyses in accordance with USACE, USBR criteria’s. Experience in rock foundation assessments, material analyses, filter assessments, geophysics investigations. Conversant in flood studies, risk-based assessments, drawdown assessments for existing reservoirs to determine dam safety in accordance with UK industry best practice.

Gill has been working at Stillwater for over 2 years. Gill has worked within many different industries as a project administrator with particular focus on compliance

Gill’s responsibilities include ensuring the continual improvement and development of company policies and practices. Gill is responsible for the coordination of all statements and technical reports, ensuring all reports adhere to Stillwater’s stringent review process. More recently the role has expanded to include the implementation and maintenance of Stillwater’s new company reservoir management system. Gill also coordinates onboarding for new staff members and organises our monthly social events.

Henry Hewlett has over 40 years’ experience in the study, design and project management of water supply schemes. Henry was a member of the All Reservoirs Panel of Engineers under the Reservoirs Act 1975 between 2001 and 2016.  In this role he undertook over 150 Section 10 inspections, was Qualified Civil Engineer for the implementation of safety works at over 50 reservoirs and acted as Construction Engineer for several new flood alleviation reservoirs.  He has co-authored CIRIA Reports and various technical papers on reservoir related topics.  He was Hon. Technical Secretary of the British Dam Society for six years, responsible for co-ordinating the technical affairs of the Society.  Since retiring from the All Reservoirs Panel in 2016 Henry has been a consultant to Stillwater Associates carrying out technical reviews of work being undertaken. 

Nathan is a Chartered Civil Engineer with 15 years’ multidisciplinary and international experience in civil, marine, hydraulic, structural and dams and reservoirs engineering working as a Consultant, Client and a Contractor. He is a Supervising Engineer appointed to the Supervising Engineers Panel under the Reservoirs Act 1975. Nathan’s specialism is in reservoir safety and dams and reservoir engineering. His experience was gained whilst working as a consultant (Arup) for 10 years on numerous reservoir remedial works schemes and then as a Dam Safety Engineering Manager for Welsh Water. In this role, Nathan was responsible for the asset management, operational surveillance and delivery of capital investment schemes to assure reservoir safety and the legal compliance of 18 large raised reservoirs under the governance of the Reservoirs Act 1975 in South West Wales. Nathan has also spent 2 years working as a Principal Engineer for a specialist civil and marine engineering contractor and in this role was responsible for carrying out engineering inspections and planning and delivering major infrastructure improvement projects in challenging environments that include reservoirs, docks and harbours, rivers and estuaries. Nathan is based in South Wales but also works out of the Reigate Office, his role within Stillwater Associates is as Principal Engineer and Supervising Engineer covering Wales, the Midlands and South West England, whilst also working nationally on the design and construction of dams and reservoir engineering projects

Chris Smith is a Chartered Civil Engineer based in the East Midlands with over 20 years experience in the water industry and over 8 years in Dams and Reservoirs.  He has undertaken several roles throughout his career including Contractor, Designer, Project Manager and Client.  Chris qualified as a Supervising Engineer in 2018 under the Reservoirs Act 1975.  He supervises both statutory and non-statutory reservoirs in England for Severn Trent and small owners.  He has worked on a number of projects recently as an expert client including drawdown improvements to reservoirs and spillway schemes.  He also represents the UK on the technical review of the harmonised European Standards EN 805 and EN 1508.

David Brown has spent much of his career as a canal engineer, having worked for the Canal & River Trust and its predecessor the British Waterways Board since 1983. He was appointed to the Supervising Engineers’ Panel in 2000, joining BW’s Reservoir Team in 2005 and leading it from 2006 later until 2020. He continues to work part-time for the Trust as a Supervising Engineer. His appointments have included many of the canal reservoirs in England and Scotland. He takes a great interest in the history of engineering and is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Panel for Historic Engineering Works. He is a Fellow of the Institution.

Jon Holland is an All Reservoirs Panel Engineer with more than thirty years experience in flood risk management and dam engineering. Jon’s early career focused on the design of dams for overseas hydroelectric projects. More recently he has project managed and led the promotion and design of many reservoir safety improvement schemes involving new spillways, siphon outlets, and other hydraulic structures.  Jon also has significant experience in the discontinuance of reservoirs.  During his career, working for a water company Jon has gained extensive experience in managing, operating and maintaining embankment dams and service water reservoirs from an Undertaker’s perspective.

John has 14 years’ in the civil and geotechnical engineering fields with expertise in earth, rockfill, and tailings dam design.  His experience comprises the design and dam safety audits of tailings dams on projects in Europe, Africa, North America and Asia Pacific.

His academic background involved researching and testing strength and durability properties of various materials for sustainable construction.  Additional technical skills in surface and seepage water management design are reinforced with practical experience gained from full-time construction supervision of dams. 

Louise Shaw is a chartered civil engineer with more than fifteen years experience working with reservoirs in various roles from contractor to client employee for monitoring and maintenance.  Louise qualified as a Supervising Engineer in 2016 and is based in North Wales.  She supervises statutory and non-statutory reservoirs in England and Wales for a variety of clients.  Her work includes outline design for practical solutions, contract supervision on site and quality management of design and site works. She has a wealth of project management experience in the practicalities of achieving maintenance and refurbishment works to reservoirs.  

Anna has over 17 years of experience in Finance.

Her previous role included managing all office tasks from customer service, quotations, order processing, invoicing and billing. Anna is very experienced in preparing financial reports, bank reconciliation, VAT processing and Payroll using Sage 50 Accounts and Xero Financial Systems.

She has been working for Stillwater since June 2021. Her responsibilities at Stillwater include invoice management and processing using Harvest and Xero, preparing staff expenses, bank reconciliation, VAT preparation, reporting as well as coordinating the internal financial activity of Stillwater.

Martin Airey is a technical specialist in dams and hydraulic engineering which has included extensive feasibility studies, detailed design and supervision of construction. He is a former member of the All Reservoirs Panel of Engineers. Martin has had overall responsibility for project delivery, technical quality and commercial performance on major projects both in the UK and overseas within the dam and reservoir engineering sector.

At Stillwater Associates Martin is now a technical consultant serving primarily the Midlands, North of England, Wales and Scotland.

John Laing has over 40 years experience in dam engineering, operation and maintenance of embankment dams and concrete service reservoirs.  He has carried out feasibility, design and construction for matters concerning items in the Interests of Safety and remedial and maintenance work to reservoirs.  His career has involved working for water companies including Northumbrian Water and consultants including  Arup and Wood Group.  He has been appointed to the Supervising Engineer Panel since its inception.  He is also appointed on the panel for Scottish Reservoirs.   John has experience of being a Supervising Engineer for large impounding reservoirs, flood storage reservoirs, reinforced concrete reservoirs  and small privately owned reservoirs.

Clifford Harrison was first appointed to the Supervising Engineers Panel in 1988. He has spent a large part of his career working on reservoir safety schemes in both the Project Engineer role and as the site supervisor. He has completed in excess of 150 reservoir safety schemes. He has worked as the designer in a traditional consultancy role, as part of the ‘in house’ design team for an Undertaker and as a Team Leader in a joint venture partnership. Clifford is currently the Supervising Engineer for 32 reservoirs.

Alastair Elder has over 35 years’ experience in the water industry in the project management, study, promotion, procurement, design and supervision of construction of water supply, flood alleviation and river engineering, dams and reservoirs, drainage and wastewater schemes. He has coordinated multi-disciplinary teams including planners, civil and M & E engineers, architects and landscape architects, scientists and ecologists. Mr Elder has been a Technical Assessor for the Drinking Water Inspectorate and a named Reporter undertaking certification of submissions to the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) for two water companies.