AGS Chair’s blog March 2025: safety, EC7 ground models and CPD notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on AGS (UK) – Blog/Magazine
30 Second Briefing
AGS’s March issue centres on women’s safety and wellbeing in geotechnics, including profiles of SiLC’s female leads and reflections on basic PPE gaps such as safety boots not available in smaller sizes. Technical content covers EC7-compliant ground model construction, Net Zero-focused rolling dynamic compaction, and current constraints in professional indemnity insurance identified by the Loss Prevention Working Group. Forthcoming CPD includes an April webinar on effective procurement of ground investigations and a May in-person Annual Conference themed “The Future”, with an early-career workplace innovation poster competition and networking reception.
Technical Brief
- Safety footwear sizing is flagged as a persisting hazard control gap for women on geotechnical sites.
- International Women’s Day on 8 March is used as a focal date for safety culture reflection.
- SiLC’s female leads are profiled to link senior professional accreditation with inclusive site safety leadership.
- EC7-compliant ground model construction is framed as a prerequisite for reliable geotechnical design risk assessment.
- Rolling dynamic compaction is discussed in the context of carbon reduction while maintaining ground improvement performance.
- Professional indemnity insurance constraints are tied to recent AGS member survey responses on risk allocation.
- An April webinar targets procurement of ground investigations as a lever for improving safety-critical data quality.
- The May in-person Annual Conference adds a workplace innovation poster competition to surface practical safety improvements.
Our Take
AGS Magazine appears only sparingly in our Geotechnical coverage, so a Chair’s blog framed around Safety and Projects will likely shape how many UK ground engineering practitioners interpret current good practice rather than just reporting it.
With Safety and Projects tags among 31 tag-matched pieces, this blog gives the Loss Prevention Working Group a relatively prominent platform compared with most technical notes, signalling that procedural and behavioural risk management are becoming as visible as design methods in our recent geotechnical items.
The timing around 8 March and a time horizon of April–May suggests AGS and SiLC are using the Chair’s blog as a soft policy lever ahead of the main spring conference and CPD season, when many UK consultants and contractors lock in training and project protocols for the year.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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