Farrans colleagues Walid Hammoud, Civil Engineer, and Saed Mohamed, Student Engineer, have recently represented the company at the Pipeline Industries Guild Professional Development Network (PDN) paper competition, showcasing their expertise and contributing to industry learning.

Walid won the Eastern regional heat with his paper, 'Above-Water-Table Dewatering: Safer, Lower-Carbon Pipeline Construction on the Strategic Pipeline Alliance', which explored innovative ways to enhance safety while cutting carbon in pipeline construction. He will now represent the Eastern branch at the National Final during the Guild Conference on 4 June in Coventry.

Walid said: "My paper and presentation were based on work from the Strategic Pipeline Alliance (Anglian Water Services), focusing on how dewatering, targeted trial holes and ground assessment carried out specifically to inform construction planning can be used to better understand real site conditions, challenge initial assumptions, and support safer and more efficient delivery. The work also demonstrated how these decisions can reduce unnecessary imported material, avoid heavier temporary works where not needed, and contribute to a lower-carbon approach to pipeline construction. I am also proud that Saed Mohamed, our Student Engineer at Farrans Construction, has made it to the regional final too. It is great to see the strength of talent coming through in the business. I am now looking forward to the National Final in June. A special thank you to Jonny Kerr for supporting me throughout the competition."

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Saed was also recognised as a regional finalist for his paper on the Anglian Water Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA) project, highlighting the importance of robust field verification and introducing a structured approach — Confirm, Cross-check, Conclude — to improve safety, reduce rework and support efficient delivery.

The PDN competition aims to promote professional development and knowledge sharing across the pipeline sector. Entrants submitted a synopsis and gave a 15-minute presentation to industry peers, providing insights into key challenges and innovations.