Holly-Anne Barber, who is based at Arup’s office in Leeds, is not only the first PDS from Arup, she was the first to have her final review conducted over the web.  In view of this, two PDS reviewers interviewed Holly-Anne.  She was mentored by Susie Bathe, and Arup’s PDS Manager, Steve McCloy, also sat in on the review.  With more remote reviews scheduled, and mentor training now adapted to remote working, the TPS PDS team is fully functional despite the COVID lockdown.

A picture of the review team is shown below 

Holly - pictured below- said that:

“I’m very happy that my submission and TPS review met the completion requirements and that I am now an ‘Incorporated Transport Planner’. I am also extremely pleased that my review still went ahead given the current circumstances. I now look forward to progressing towards becoming chartered through the TPP Qualification and I think the work I’ve put in to achieving the PDS will really help”

Steve McCloy said:

“Holly has demonstrated great commitment to complete the scheme – I hope current trainees on the scheme, or those thinking about joining the scheme will be inspired by Holly’s success”.

Keith Buchan, TPS Skills Director said:

"Best wishes to Holly for her achievement, she produced an excellent application and I’m sure she has a great future in the profession. It's great news to welcome her to the growing community of transport planners who have completed PDS and can now also use the title Incorporated Transport Planner: IncTP.

We have had to think through how we could adapt our processes to conduct remote final reviews, and fortunately we had been piloting some aspects of this before the COVID lockdown.  We have two more remote final reviews in hand, are proceeding with web-based mentor training, and are confident that the PDS is very much open for business.  We will be encouraging participants in the scheme to use any additional spare time they may have at present to move their applications forward – we are ready to receive them!”