DPC awards Anthony Bates a Commendation

DPC Magazine has awarded a Commendation for Services to the Industry to Anthony Bates. This award highlights an outstanding individual who has provided an impactful contribution to the industry, whether one-off or sustained. In introducing Anthony at the award ceremony Lisa Maher, editor of DPC stated:

“Originally brought up in Essex in 1940, he studied civil engineering at Mid-Essex Collage, which included the key disciplines of geology, soil mechanics, hydraulics and hydrographic surveying. Little did he know at that time that this would set him up for a lifetime in dredging – if only he had known!

Tony commenced his long association with the wetter side of engineering and dredging in 1959 when he joined the then Essex River Authority. Tony remained in this post until 1966 by which time he had advanced to being an assistant resident engineer. But the lure of the West Country and new challenges took him to Cornwall where he joined the Cornwall River Authority as a land drainage and coast engineer. It was here that Tony cut his teeth with proper dredging with the purchase of their first cutter suction dredger. Although this work was predominantly inland and near shore dredging, the seed had been sowed.

In 1969 Tony was lured away to the contracting side of the dredging industry with a 3 year stint as manager of the Cutter Suction Dredging Co Ltd, but this was not enough of a challenge and in 1971 he setup the UK office of Seven Seas Dredging Co. Ltd (now Dredging International). As general Manager he was responsible for all activities and operations carried out in the UK.

It was in 1976 that Tony finally realised his ambition to become an independent consultant by setting up the Anthony D Bates Partnership. During his career to that date he had identified a gap in the relationship between the clients and the contractors, so he took steps to fill the void, and the rest you could say is history.

The Anthony D Bates Partnership has now been in existence for over 40 years and has flourished during that time, with over 500 dredging related projects being carried out all over the world. Under Tony’s guidance the Partnership has continued to grow within this specialist field of engineering. This lifetime of experience has resulted in Tony being engaged on many expert witness cases where there has been a dredging element to the ‘differences of opinion’.

It hasn’t all been physical dredging, Tony was one of the 3 authors who wrote and published the ‘Dredging - a Handbook for Engineers’, which was first published in 1979. This collaboration resulted in lifelong friendships with his co-authors Nick Bray and the late John Land. The book is often referred to as ‘the Dredging Bible’ and is still in print today following an updated 2nd addition in 1997.

During his long career Tony has also been an active contributor to the Institute of Engineers, CEDA, PIANC and had a considerable hand in the development of ‘British Standard 6349 - Part 5 Code of Practice for Dredging and Land Reclamation’ back in 1981 and was also involved with its recent revision this year.

All in all I think it can be said that Tony probably has more silt than blood running through veins.”