Policy and media

Press release

Stevenage’s First Citizen visits Europe’s largest engineers’ body

16 August 2012

Mayor of Stevenage Stevenage’s First Citizen has today toured the headquarters of Europe’s largest engineers’ body, which has been based in the town for over 40 years.

Mayor of Stevenage, Councillor John Lloyd CC, was guest of honour at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Based at Six Hills Way, Stevenage, the IET has over 150,000 members in 127 countries around the world, and provides a professional home for life for its members, supporting them throughout their careers. The IET is also a significant publisher with a number of world-leading engineering publications.

Councillor Lloyd met with the IET’s Chief Executive, Nigel Fine, and was shown around the organisation’s Michael Faraday House offices, which employs 500 people, many from the local area.

Nigel Fine said: “As a leading member of the Stevenage business community we were delighted to host Councillor Lloyd and demonstrate the work we do to share and advance knowledge and help lead the international engineering community.

“We have had strong connections with Stevenage for over 40 years when we opened our first offices here and it was a pleasure to introduce Councillor Lloyd to our staff, many of whom live locally.”

Councillor Lloyd said: “It’s been a pleasure to get a closer look at one of the leading and most established employers in Stevenage. The IET has a very visible presence in the town and it’s fantastic that a number of local people are involved in some of the ground breaking work they do. I drive past these headquarters every day on my way to the gym, so getting to explore the other side of the fence today has been a real experience.”

As well as being Europe’s largest membership body for engineers, the IET is a registered charity with a remit to share and advance understanding of engineering. It does this through its Faraday education programme and also offers scholarships of £500,000 every year to encourage the next generation of engineers.