Balfour Beatty has appointed Lee Hewitt as UK Health, Safety and Environment Director.

Lee will take up his new role on 05 September, following Heather Bryant retiring on 18 November, having spent eight years at Balfour Beatty.

Lee will be responsible for driving the company's Zero Harm, Health, Safety and Wellbeing strategy across the Group, working closely with Balfour Beatty’s leadership teams and the Board Safety and Sustainability Committee.

An experienced construction and infrastructure leader, Lee has undertaken several strategic roles, most recently as Programme Director for Site Wide Delivery and Logistics for Balfour Beatty VINCI’s HS2 Area North contract, Britain’s new high-speed rail line and the largest infrastructure project in Europe.


In addition, he has held roles at the SMB (Skanska MWH Balfour Beatty) joint venture delivering the Thames Water capital programme, as well as the Head of Capital Procurement for Gatwick Airport Limited, Director of Procurement and Contract Management at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, Head of Infrastructure, Project Management and Construction EMEA for Lendlease, and the Head of UK Procurement for National Grid where he spent 25 years. Lee’s experience will drive further operational focus and insights as the Group continues to deliver against its Zero Harm strategy.

Having joined Balfour Beatty to work on the HS2 project in 2020, Lee is further testament to the Group’s ongoing commitment to developing broad leadership careers through a strong commitment to internal mobility.

Heather Bryant has been instrumental in progressing Balfour Beatty’s Health & Safety agenda, a core value of the Group's Build to Last strategy, most notably, overseeing a 50% reduction in Lost Time Injury Rate since 2014, and the launch of the company’s Observation App which has seen over 750,000 health and safety observations. Heather has also been instrumental in many industry-wide initiatives including co-founding the Health in Construction Leadership Group to focus on treating health like safety and spearheading the industry conversation around mental health.