Profile
Sarah Naylor
Senior Air Quality Consultant
My CV
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Education:
Bridgewater County High School: 1994 – 1999, Priestley College: 1999 – 2001, Lancaster University: 2001 – 2004
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Qualifications:
BSc (Hons) Environmental Science
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Work History:
Hyder Consulting (UK) Ltd (2004 – 2006), Environment Agency (2006), Doncaster MB Council (2006 – 2014), REC (2014 – 2015), Arcadis Consulting (UK) Ltd (2016 – present) and Highways England secondment (2017 – 2019)
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Current Job:
Senior Air Quality Consultant for Arcadis
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About Me:
I live in Warrington with my partner, seven year old son and one year old daughter. They definitely keep us busy but, given the chance we love weekends away, ideally trying somewhere or something new and spending time together. We also probably spend far too much time in front of the TV!
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I live in Warrington with my partner James, seven year old son Ethan and one year old daughter Clara. We also share our home with a lazy cat called Tigger. When time allows between work and school drop-offs and pick-ups I enjoy spending time doing yoga or dance, reading pretty much anything on my Kindle or binge watching a box sets with James, we’ve just finished The Mandalorian. Weekends are best spent as a four, either enjoying our garden or visiting somewhere old and familiar or new and exciting.
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I am an Air Quality Specialist with over 15 years’ experience in the air quality profession, including within both consultancy and local authority. My current role is as a Senior Air Quality Consultant which involves of the completion of Air Quality Assessments in support of planning applications for a wide range of UK and international clients and sectors. I also complete work as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process and complete dispersion modelling studies for odour as well as air quality. Air Quality is the focus of my career, however, I have also been involved in contaminated land, closed landfill site aftercare, environmental permitting and environmental information regulations whilst working at Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council.
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My Typical Day:
My typical day involves reviewing and answering emails and completing the various elements that are needed to complete an air quality assessment including baseline data collection, modelling or report writing.
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A typical day working as an air quality consultant within consultancy starts with reviewing and replying to emails received since I last logged on. These emails may include information or data required for the scheme I’m currently working on (this may be a new road scheme, a new housing development, a new car park or something else entirely), it may be a request to provide a fee proposal to complete an air quality assessment for a new project, it may be a request for information or some general admin information. Unfortunately emails can take up a surprisingly long time of your day but ideally once these have been dealt with I will normally be involved in some aspect of the completion of an air quality assessment. If the project has just commenced I’ll need to gather baseline air quality data. This can be done through contacting the relevant local authority to request their most recent monitoring data and also obtaining Defra’s (Department for the environment, food and rural affairs) air pollution background maps from their website. This provides the background pollution levels for an area. The next stage of an air quality assessment is to undertake dispersion modelling which I complete using computer software to predict air quality concentrations usually from road vehicle exhaust emissions. I use these predictions to produce contour plots of air quality concentrations across an area to see whether the scheme is likely to cause any areas of poor air quality. I use a number of computer programmes for this purpose including Mapinfo and Surfer, along with the dispersion model ADMS-Roads. Finally, the baseline data and results need to be written up in a report to provide to the client. I don’t complete all these processes in just one day (although it has been known for very small projects with extremely tight deadlines), but any one of these activities can be part of my regular working day.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would like to fund a couple of diffusion tube monitoring schemes at schools within areas of poor air quality and provide guidance from myself to educate the students in using these devices, their meaning and air quality in general.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Sincere, compassionate, chatty
What did you want to be after you left school?
An interior designer
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not often, my worst moment was getting thrown out of Chemistry for messing with my friend's glasses, she got thrown out too even though it was my fault.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Frank Turner
What's your favourite food?
Dessert!
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Good heath, happiness and wealth for my family and friends
Tell us a joke.
My son's favourite: What do you call Father Christmas on the Beach? Sandy Claus
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