Life at Stride Treglown / Associate Sustainability & Planning Consultant

Pete Badger

We are sustainable.

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Life at Stride Treglown - Vol 1
Pete Badger – We’re Sustainable
Stride Treglown

Hi, come on in. I’m Pete Badger. I’m a Town Planner and a Sustainability Consultant for Stride Treglown.

I’m just getting ready to leave the house, so it’s about quarter past seven. I generally set my alarm for about 6-6:30. Thankfully, I can start work around 8 o’clock-ish and leave early. I tend to leave around 4.30pm and that enables me to go to the gym or do a bit of housework. Stride Treglown gives us that extra flexibility.

Breakfast time

I want to eat usually as soon as I’m up, so I’ll pour myself a bowl of cereal. I tend to stick the TV on in the morning. I like to know what’s happening.

An exciting place to live

I moved to this flat at the end of 2009. When I moved into Old Market, it was fairly run down in some places but I could tell that it was moving in the right direction – it was on the up. I got involved with the local Community Association about one or two years after I moved in. At that point, we were asked to look at planning applications and to give our comments on them – most were shopfront changes or changes of use of small buildings. Now it’s major developments – big student accommodation buildings – so it’s quite an exciting place to live.

Proud Bristol

I’ve recently got involved in a local LGBT networking organisation called Proud Bristol. It was pretty soon after I started going to those events that I decided it might be a good idea to open things up a little within Stride Treglown. When I joined the company, it wasn’t immediately obvious that anybody else was [part of the LGBT+ community] but I knew there must be people. I thought it would be a good idea to get Stride Treglown involved with things like Bristol Pride and Proud Bristol so new people joining the company, or thinking they might join the company, can actually see that Stride Treglown supports LGBT people, within the company and within the wider industry.

We’ve since sponsored part of the Bristol Pride parade. We also held a breakfast event this year which is a new thing. We hired out a local bar and put on pastries, lots of coffee, virgin bloody Mary’s – which were quite spicy – and we invited people to fuel up with us before Bristol Pride day.

A cycling city

So I’m just going to pack my bag and get my keys. I’m going to unfold my bike which I think I’ve got down to an art now.

I’ve been cycling since March and it’s now July time. It takes me about 20 minutes to ride to work and that’s uphill. At the bottom of Park Street, I get to the point where I might need to get off and push. But the last couple of weeks I’ve made it all the way to the top a few times which I’m quite proud of. We’ll have to see what happens today. Despite being very hilly, Bristol’s a cycling city and loads of other people at the office also cycle so I feel in good company.

Leafy surburbia

Having our office up in Clifton and out of the city centre is quite different to a lot of other companies. As the newest inhabitants of a former family mansion, it means we’ve got a front garden which most offices don’t have. It means we’re in a leafy suburbia rather than busy, congested, noisy city centre. But we’re still really well linked to everywhere – we get the best of both worlds.

I’m now arriving at work feeling energised. Stop my Strava recording. 21 minutes, that’s not bad.

Because I’ve got the bike, I take the lift. I don’t fancy carrying it up too many flights of stairs. I always think at the top of this lift, she announces the floor like it’s a question. Level two? It’s like – is it level two? Right, put my bike here so it’s out of the way of everybody. Stick the helmet on top and now I put my bike down and get changed.

A foot in both camps

We are within the top ten largest architectural practices in the country so we get a lot of opportunities to work with large clients, large universities and large healthcare providers like the NHS. We did a lot of work for the MOD as well which was really interesting, especially when you get to go to a site which not many people get go to. The variety of sectors which Stride Treglown is involved in, means that every day is different.

I started at Stride Treglown in 2005 as a Graduate Town Planner. I had worked within the Planning team for around about five years when I was presented with the opportunity to start working with the Sustainability team. I did that for around about five years, found I really liked it and ended up leading our small team of three. I’ve now got a foot in both camps and Stride Treglown has made that really easy for me. I haven’t had to think about going anywhere else.

In the allotment 

I’ve been with the company for 14 years now and a lot of the same faces have stayed – that’s a testament to how the company runs itself. There is a lot of focus on things like mental health and green issues. For example, we have a Green Week every year and we recycle all our food waste. Actually, we could go out and I could water my allotment now?

We’re now in the Stride Treglown front garden. We have a couple of beehives opposite the office. I planted a couple of lavender plants to attract the bees and pollinate my vegetables. I’m trying to grow courgettes, peas and some French beans this year. I planted some raspberries at the end of last year which have taken over my second plot. So I’ll just get the watering can and we can give the plants a water. There are some nice pink ripe raspberries on the plant and they look as though they’re about ready to eat. Really ripe one there. Pick that one. May as well have one. Tasting quite good. I think I’ve eaten the only two that are there at the moment but there are plenty more on the way.

We are sustainable

I love working at Stride Treglown because it’s a very open business. Everybody is approachable from the person on the front desk to the Chairman. It really is a ‘my door’s always open’ kind of company. We have fun doing what we do and actually do what we say – we design buildings for people which work. And within our own company as well, we actually practice what we preach. We are sustainable.