Events & Courses

Speaker:

Scott O'Neill from AECOM UK

Time:

18.00 hrs

Location:

Online via Microsoft Teams

The UK’s industrial mining legacy is present across the Country. From flint mining in the South Downs to Tin mining in Cornwall, legacy hazards remain and must be considered by engineering professionals. However, the hazards posed by abandoned historical underground coal workings are potentially the most widespread.

With major projects such as HS2 proposed to cross swathes of the country previously impacted by mining, the assessment and remediation of mining hazards remain a high priority to practitioners; even after decades of remedial works already having been undertaken.

Assessing the risk from shallow workings and mine entries is not always straightforward. In relation to workings for many years the application of the 10T approach has been considered ‘The’ rule of thumb. 

This talk introduces the risks posed by historical abandoned coal workings beneath sites and will draw on a number of case studies from the speaker and others; highlighting the decision process that often goes into designing remedial works. Furthermore, it introduces the concept of the 10T ‘rule’ and why it should not be applied blindly and without consideration of all other failure mechanisms. 

Speaker Biography

Scott is a Technical Director for AECOM UK and leads AECOM’s Mining Remediation Practice Group. He has been interested and working with the coal mining legacy of the UK for twenty years.

He graduated from Imperial College with BSc in Geology and holds MScs in Geotechnical Engineering and Tunnelling. His early career was spent working on small and medium sites blighted by mining issues and he joined AECOM (Scott Wilson) in 2006. 

Scott’s work has taken him across Europe and the Middle East working on many notable mega projects. He has always retained an interest in the importance the Industrial Revolution played in the emergence of the UK. He was a major contributor to the current CIRIA guidance on mining legacy in the UK and was a joint author for Chapter 13 (treatment).