ICE Spring Prestige Debate 2025

David Porter

David Porter is current ICE Senior Vice President. Porter is a trustee of the ICE and, until recently, held the learning society portfolio.

Porter is currently the director of engineering with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), which is the roads authority for Northern Ireland. He’s the chief highways engineer.

He is also the head of the civil engineering profession with the Northern Ireland civil service.

He’s responsible for the development of the department’s professional and technical staff, engineering policies and standards, and health and safety. He also leads on procurement and the internal consultancy.

Previously, Porter was the chief executive of the Rivers Agency, the flood defence and drainage authority for Northern Ireland. He also held the posts of director of development and director of operations with the agency.

Porter is a past chair of the Northern Ireland region of the ICE. He’s been on the ICE Council three times: two terms as the Northern Ireland representative, and one as a general member.

He has also served on numerous committees and panels:

• He was a member of the Presidential Commission on the ICE Governance (the Orr Review).
• He chaired the member-led review of NOMCO, the Audit Committee, and the Qualifications Panel.
• He has been on the Committee of Management of the ICE Benevolent Fund.

Amongst various distinctions, Porter is a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Poskitt Medal by the ICE Northern Ireland Region in 2017, and the Engineers Ireland President’s Award in 2018.

Mark Tindale

In his role at Canadian consultancy Stantec, Mark Tindale is focused on tackling the drought and water resilience challenges facing the British Isles. He spent more than two decades with Arup, where he delivered major water infrastructure in the UK and southern Africa, advised regulators and provided thought leadership. He is passionate about finding ways to secure resilient water supplies for the planet for generations to come.

Dr Geoff Darch

In his current role at Anglian Water, Geoff Darch is accountable for developing, monitoring and reporting on the firm’s strategic plans for water and wastewater infrastructure. He is also a non-executive director at Water Resources East, a multi-sector membership body pioneering new ways to safeguard supplies.

Before joining Anglian in 2017 as a principal resource systems planner focused on severe droughts, Darch spent 16 years as a consultant. In that capacity, he advised government departments, environmental agencies, utility firms and financial institutions on infrastructure climate risks. He has a PhD in hydro-climatology from the University of East Anglia.

Rhys Cotterell

Having graduated from Imperial College London with a master’s degree in civil engineering in 2022, Rhys Cotterell now designs and coordinates infrastructure projects across the UK for AtkinsRéalis. He is also one of the ICE’s President Future Leaders for 2024-25.  

Dr Heather Smith

With research interests including consumers’ responses to new techniques such as wastewater recycling, Heather Smith has been studying the societal aspects of the water sector at Cranfield since 2011. An environmental science graduate from the University of Alberta, Smith previously worked for Canadian NGO Environmental Defence as a researcher, recommending policy changes to improve water management at both provincial and national levels.

In 2006, she moved to the UK to complete an MSc in water science and a PhD in geography at the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen respectively.

Simon Harrow

A technical and regulatory specialist, Simon Harrow has nearly 20 years’ experience in water, environmental and asset management. In his current role at Ofwat, he’s focused on medium-term improvements to the water resources management process.

With an MSc in water resources technology and management from the University of Birmingham, he started his career managing green spaces for Stratford-on-Avon District Council before spending nearly six years with British Waterways (now the Canal & River Trust) as a hydrological modeller.

Harrow deepened his expertise in Severn Trent’s water resources and asset strategy team before joining Ofwat in 2016, initially as a senior policy and strategy associate. When he was the regulator’s head of water enhancement in 2023-24, he led a team that assessed water companies’ business plans for the five-yearly price determinations that set the costs they could pass on to consumers. 

Neil Gardener

Over his 15 years at Stantec, Neil Gardener has led sustainable wastewater management schemes for clients across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Much of this work has focused on the use of wastewater recycling as a potable and non-potable resource option. As a member of Stantec’s sustainability community, Gardener has also led PAS 2080-aligned strategy development and carbon evaluation for large water supply projects. Such work, he says, has highlighted tensions between our resilience and decarbonisation goals, which require careful management to ensure success in both fields.