John Norfolk has taken over as President of the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) for 2019/20 from Tim Hopkinson of E Poppleton & Son, who served for two years.
A senior project manager at Imtech Engineering Services, he was chair of BESA Yorkshire region from 2010 to 2012, and is a long-serving member of the Association’s membership and legal & commercial committees.
Taking up the role at BESA’s recent AGM, he described BESA’s members as the Association’s greatest asset, pledging to build on the technical legacy of the 115-year-old body ‘to help tackle the modern challenges created by climate change and the need for better buildings to help address social problems’. “Never has our sector’s specialist knowledge been more in demand and more valuable,” said Mr Norfolk. “We are in the midst of major technical and philosophical change in this country. Part of the political upheaval are the critical challenges we face around climate change. This will transform the way we work, and thrust our industry into the limelight. However, this also creates an opportunity to address even more fundamental social issues affected by building performance.”
Paying tribute to Mr Hopkinson, John Norfolk thanked him for ‘taking on the extra burden and responsibility’ of a second year in office, to ‘steer the Association through some choppy waters’. BESA and its membership were, he said, ‘in the vanguard of zero carbon action’. He added: “We are already delivering low carbon building services systems, energy efficiency, and clean energy projects, up and down the country.”
