STEPS 2022 - Lancaster Alumni Magazine 2022

STEPS 2020 - 14 As a council director with a passion for the environmental issues, Paula Hewitt has found herself facing crisis after crisis as the effects of climate make themselves felt. Not long before speaking, the Deputy Chief Executive of Somerset Council (who leads on economic and community infrastructure) had been working with her Highways Department on the aftermath of a weekend of storms that brought down 300 trees and disrupted power supplies. That followed hard on a flooding emergency, not as devastating as those in 2014/15, but damaging. Suddenly there was the Ukraine situation, bringing concerns about fuel, against a background of the continuing Covid pandemic. “It’s been a strange few years,” muses Paula. “We seem to roll from one emergency to another. You are constantly juggling and trying to be strategic and to think long term and then there’s what the issue is today. But climate change is still the biggest and most long-term challenge that we have to face - locally, nationally and internationally.” As President of ADEPT (The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport) she is leading the drive for councils to tackle climate change at a local level across the UK. She’s only the third female president in ADEPT’s 136-year history and it’s the achievement of which she is most proud. Bowland College also provided welcome social activities and the Environmental Society too. After gaining a first at Lancaster she went to work for British Coal Opencast for four years as a graduate trainee, then a planner, looking at integrating proposals with the needs of the community. Somerset County Council provided her next move as a minerals planner dealing with limestone and peat extraction. From then on, she says: “I just worked my way up and now manage a range of services from highways and waste to water management and libraries.” Her top priority is climate change, especially having been in the hot seat managing the disastrous Somerset 2014/15 floods. Since then she has been working on resilience and disaster for the European Committee of the Regions (part of EU). “That really made me think, hearing about natural disasters round the world” she says. “Flooding is so linked with climate change. How do we reduce our carbon emissions, adapt and work towards the future sustainability?” Clearly Paula’s Environmental Science Studies at Lancaster have shaped her career, but the University also gave her much more: “It’s the life skills, being independent and carving your own path,” she says. “I also developed people skills that you use throughout your life.” To read the full interview visit www.lancaster.ac.uk/alumni But her environmental journey started in earnest at Lancaster University, studying Environmental Science. Paula was born in East Lothian in Scotland. She’d studied for her Scottish Highers so had a year to look around universities over the border in England and was captivated by Lancaster University’s campus, the city and the Environmental Science course content, and gained an unconditional offer. Her room in Bowland College overlooked Alexandra Square and she quickly settled in. Her lectures, seminars and tutors were a revelation to her, inspiring her to grapple with subjects she could see would be completely relevant to her life - in particular how to deal with environmental challenges. Her dissertation supervisor was Colin Patrick and looked at the effect of open cast mining on hydrology in the Hunter Valley in Australia - though she has yet to visit it. When floods hit Somerset in 2014/15 and Paula was involved both in the immediate response and the long-term strategy, she was amused to find herself digging back into her Lancaster University studies - especially the hydrology, and the geology. She led the work to minimise future flooding in the county through the establishment of the Somerset Rivers Authority. Her student social life revolved around the hiking club where she acquired a large circle of friends and became club secretary. Weekends were in the Lake District bagging fells. GRADUATED: 1986 SUBJECT: ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES COLLEGE: BOWLAND PROFESSION: DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE SOMERSETCOUNCIL/ PRESIDENTOF ADEPT 2 Paula Hewitt

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