Rapleys hires Shaun Butcher to Drive New Utilities Service

February 2024 – Strategic property consultancy Rapleys has made a major hire to drive its newly launched Utilities Consulting business. Shaun Butcher joins as Senior Consultant, bringing nine years’ specialist experience within the Utilities industry. 

Shaun joins from Premier Energy Services, where he was lead Project Manager, responsible for project delivery and CAD within energy and infrastructure. Shaun is an experienced and qualified Engineer who is also certified in Customer Engagement (Prince2), Auto CAD, Street Works Training (Supervisor) and proficient in underground Utilities radar probing.

Shaun’s appointment is the first senior appointment to the Rapleys’ utilities consulting service which they announced recently. The team sits within the Land Development Project Management team under Partner Jason Mound, part of Building Consultancy and works in partnership with developers to oversee major projects. Utilities has become increasingly essential to all land development projects with the focus on increasing infrastructure to support electricity, gas, water and digital connectivity with fast-rising demand for data, speed and new forms of tech coupled with policy and planning-related changes within these areas. With pressure on existing infrastructure and requirements for new connections across all utilities, this often raises challenges and complexities that developers need consultants to overcome early on in the programme of development to avoid costly delays. 

Jason Mound said: “We are really excited at Shaun joining the team. His unique understanding and experience in utilities project management will strengthen our offer considerably and provide developers with peace of mind from the start of their projects relating to infrastructure and utilities work, which is becoming more complex and increasingly delaying works and incurring greater costs as a result. Our team are able to deal with this from day one and tackle all challenges so developers can get on with delivering their schemes efficiently.”

Shaun Butcher said: “I am delighted to join the team at Rapleys. It is rare to see a property consultancy who has such an in-depth understanding of what it takes to make infrastructure projects work for all stakeholders and I’m keen to get stuck in and add value to the Utilities side in particular for clients large and small that are facing complexities on site or who are proactive and want to understand potential issues and put in place a plan early on.”

Rapleys has been growing significantly in its Building Consultancy, Planning and Residential Divisions with a number of new services launched or added to in 2023, to build on its excellent reputation in delivering projects to clients.