Meet Helen Iorwerth
Introducing Helen Iorwerth, Principal Transport Planner at Mayer Brown!
Our Meet the Builders series spotlights the people and organisations shaping the built environment — from designers and engineers to planners, surveyors, developers, and communicators.
This edition features Helen Iorwerth of Mayer Brown, a leading consultancy in transport planning and infrastructure design. Helen is part of our growing community at Society Building Bristol, our newest coworking space in the South West — a hub for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and purpose-driven practice.
Tell us a bit about yourself…
I’ve worked as a transport planner for 24 years, including 18 years with Mayer Brown in Bristol, managing development-focused projects. I contribute to planning applications through Transport Assessments, Travel Plans, traffic modelling, and design work.
While I’m an all-rounder, I particularly enjoy LinSig modelling for signal-controlled junctions.
In my spare time, I enjoy kayaking and kung fu, and I am a trustee for a local nature reserve. I also foster pet rabbits for a rabbit rescue group while they look for permanent homes.
And Mayer Brown?
Mayer Brown is one of the UK’s leading independent highways consultants with a team of 60 in regional offices across the UK. In 2023 we celebrated our 35th Anniversary. We currently have a team of six transport planners at Society Building Bristol, though we’re not usually all in at once, and we are hoping to grow a design team within the office.
We specialise in transport planning, highway design, flood risk, and drainage — supporting projects from feasibility to construction. With extensive experience across private and public sectors, we deliver practical solutions for developers, local authorities, retailers, and more.
Our Bristol team works on a wide range of projects, with supermarkets forming a key sector — alongside housing, retirement and later living schemes, healthcare, education and community facilities.
How would you capture your work in 30 seconds?
A recent junction design for a proposed supermarket, along with associated trip generation and distribution assessment. A review of one of our transport reports would give a good overview of our development planning work but would take much longer than 30 seconds!
What’s an opportunity for change in the built environment that excites you?
Active Travel—walking, wheeling, and cycling—is gaining real traction in project design. Although this has long been a part of policy, it’s now moving up the agenda for councils and clients too. Guidance like LTN 1/20 is driving better pedestrian and cycle provision from the outset. Where space allows, clients are more willing to accept and more importantly fund such provision from the start.
Travel Plans to encourage sustainable travel are also becoming more important – again, these have been required as part of planning, but it’s not uncommon for these to be produced for planning consent and then put in the back of a cupboard by the client. More Councils are now requiring these to be actively implemented, which has given us the opportunity to put these into practice.
Favourite thing about working in a coworking space?
The buzz of a larger office and mix of people. We’d outgrown our previous hot-desking set up as our team expanded and while it was a friendly place to work, few occupants worked in the built environment. Our move to Society Building Bristol gives us the opportunity to meet new people – and potential clients or collaborators – working in the built environment. Plus, the ability to have a mix of fixed and hot-desks provides a lot of flexibility and cost benefits.
And finally, if your work had a soundtrack, which song would play first?
There was some debate in the team about this (Ticket to Ride? Walk this Way? Bicycle Race?), but if I had control of the playlist, the first song up would be “I’m gonna be (500 miles)” by the Proclaimers.
