NARRO NEWCASTLE CELEBRATES THREE YEARS WITH GROWING PIPELINE OF WORK

Sustainable civil and structural engineering consultancy, Narro Associates (Narro), which established a Newcastle office three years ago at Hoults Yard, is celebrating its third anniversary in the region by announcing year-on-year growth of both its team and pipeline of work.

Launching with just one member of staff in 2022, the team has expanded to eight engineers and technicians, turnover has increased each year and both its portfolio and pipeline of work reflect an ability to undertake a wide range of impressive engineering projects.

Narro has its roots in Scotland and was originally founded in Edinburgh in 1986. The board’s  decision to expand into Newcastle with its first location outside Scotland provided a significant opportunity for Bill Calder, who joined Narro as a graduate and worked his way up through the ranks.

Having spent the previous seven years working at the Edinburgh office, being offered the opportunity to open the sixth Narro office in Newcastle was simply one he could not turn down.

Fast forward to 2025 and he is now a senior associate and section leader at the Newcastle office. Over the last three years, he has gradually built the Narro brand within the northeast business community – either when wearing his business development hat or because of his passion for the conservation of historic buildings.  Speaking of his role and team, he says:

“We have an incredible team in Narro Newcastle.  Originally, I was the only employee based in the North East and I leveraged the skills of our engineers in other Narro offices when undertaking more complicated projects, but it very quickly became apparent that we needed more team members in the Newcastle office to cover the growing workload.

“Jenn Hogarth was our first appointment.  As a senior engineer and Passivhaus design expert, Jenn benefited from established contacts in the North East area along with extensive experience in residential properties and multi-storey buildings.  For my part, I have a keen interest in conservation and architectural engineering, so with this breadth of expertise between us, we have expanded steadily into a very tight and effective team.

“We have the huge advantage of employing staff from a variety of specialist backgrounds including the conservation of historic buildings, sustainable design and structural timber design.  This means we can cover most types of projects.”

The Newcastle team has been working on several historic buildings recently including the Orchard House at Cragside, Rothbury and at Alnwick Railway station whilst also working on some beautiful Grade I listed churches.  These included the structural monitoring and stabilisation of the Church of Our Lady at Seaton Delaval Hall and St Mary’s Heritage Centre in Gateshead.

Meanwhile, drawing on the firm’s expertise in timber design, Narro has been working on a major  project at one of the North East’s premier hotels to design a new spa and swimming pool building. 

Bill continued:  “Another big part of our work is museum projects, and we are currently working on the redevelopment of the Segedunum Roman Fort Museum in North Tyneside and The Museum of Hartlepool.  These projects are always great to work on as they bring together a little bit of everything – from conservation and sustainability to new challenges – such as inventing ways to suspend or support items from the museum collections!

“Looking to the future, I aim to further consolidate our position in the North East – particularly in the conservation, cultural and sustainability sectors  – which should see us expanding out of Newcastle to cover more of the North of England.”

With five offices in Scotland in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Inverness and Aberdeen, Narro delivers civil and structural engineering consultancy to architects and developers on multiple projects throughout the UK and sometimes overseas, employing 100+ staff and delivering over 700 projects annually.