TWO new engineering roles are set to be created at Merthyr Tydfil Council.
Full council on Wednesday, July 9, approved the creation of the posts which are a principal structures chartered engineer and a principal highway engineer.
The report said they would provide high level expertise to the engineering department in fulfilling the council’s statutory duties and resolving future engineering challenges.
It said they would also provide resilience together with additional resource to deal with emergency engineering incidents and to ensure council infrastructure remained safe for use and fit for purpose.
In addition to day-to-day duties the engineering department has faced increased pressures in recent years due to various factors including climate change which has had an impact on the severity of engineering emergencies that have arisen, the report said.
Other factors include that the department only has one chartered engineer, new legislation and the ability to retain trained and sufficiently qualified staff.
The restructure includes forming a dedicated team for coal tips and reservoirs and increases the staff resource in the structures section from two to five.
The report said that the principal structures engineer would be chartered and would also alleviate a single point of dependency in decision making during emergency incidents such as house fires, traffic incidents or storm events.
The principle structures engineer will also act as a deputy to the head of engineering to “alleviate the risk of having a single point of dependency, ensure business continuity and promote succession planning within the department.”
The restructure also involves removing a single point of dependency in highway development control by moving an existing assistant engineer post to support the senior engineer.
Traffic, road safety and highway development control will form a new team that will be managed by the creation of a principal highway engineer.
The report said: “This new post will provide additional skill set in relation to transport planning and road safety audits and assist with the implementation of new Welsh Government legislation.
“The post will also be the point of contact for traffic and highway development and represent the authority on various forums.”
