PSA has been quietly shaping Cumbria’s built environment for over 20 years. Chances are, you’ve already been in one of our projects.
The Carlisle Library. Cumberland Infirmary. The East Stand at Carlisle United. The Sandgate SEND School. If you’ve lived or worked in Cumbria for any length of time, you’ve probably passed through a building that PSA’s engineering team had a hand in.
We’re Pettit Singleton Associates, building services engineers. We design and maintain the mechanical and electrical systems inside buildings. Things like heating, ventilation, air conditioning, power, lighting, and water systems, ensuring everything runs efficiently, sustainably, and safely.
We’ve recently joined the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce as a Partner Member, and we wanted to take the opportunity to properly introduce ourselves to the local business community.
“Most places across the county, we’ve had a hand in at some point.” — Joel Collins, Principal Engineer
Our Carlisle office has a team of six engineers, all local. We work across healthcare, education, heritage, sport, and community buildings, from initial feasibility through to design, authorising engineer services, and increasingly, decarbonisation programmes for councils and public sector estates.
Our impact across the county
As Joel Collins, our Principal Engineer in Carlisle, puts it: “Most places across the county, we’ve had a hand in at some point.” Here’s a sample of the projects we’ve been involved in:
Healthcare
Furness General Hospital — Authorising engineer services covering LV electrical, confined spaces, asbestos, and water hygiene. This role provides specialist technical advice, guidance, and support to heavily regulated organisations.
Keswick Hospital & Brampton Hospital Ward Extensions — Delivering technical designs in live healthcare environments, where getting it right without disrupting patient care is non-negotiable.
Harbour Place Extra Care Residential Facility, Workington — Building services consultancy for a residential care facility designed around the people who live in it.
Education
Sandgate SEND School — Working closely with school staff to understand exactly what the pupils needed, then designing the mechanical and electrical systems around that. Seeing it in use and knowing it makes a real difference is what this work is about. The relationship has continued, we’ve since worked at Kendal College and the local primary school for the same staff.
Lakes College – Civil Engineering Training Facility – Full Mechanical and Electrical Design for the college’s new facility.
Summer Schools Programme – Education sector work from Barrow to the west coast. We’ve been involved in heating replacements and electrical upgrades with schools across the region including Millom School electrical rewire.
Community & Public Sector
Carlisle and Kendal Library Refurbishments — Public buildings that need to keep working while the work is going on around them.
Cumberland Sports Village and Carlisle United East Stand Development — Sport and leisure facilities at the heart of the local community.
Phoenix Enterprise Centre Refurbishment — Commercial refurbishment supporting local business.
Maryport Activity Centre — Community leisure facility on the west Cumbrian coast.
Heritage: Old Buildings, Modern Engineering Problems
Cumbria is full of buildings that were never designed with modern engineering in mind. That’s part of what makes it such an interesting place to work, and a demanding one. You can’t just apply a standard specification to a Grade II listed building or a Victorian civic institution. You have to understand the fabric of the building, work within the constraints of planning and conservation requirements, and find solutions that are actually buildable.
We’ve built up real experience doing exactly that across Cumbria:
Maryport Maritime Museum — A heritage building repurposed to tell the story of the town’s seafaring history. Sensitive M&E design to preserve the character of the building while making it fully functional for a modern museum use.
Kielder Castle, Forestry England — A historic estate building in a remote location. Bringing modern building services to a structure like this takes patience, problem-solving, and an understanding of what’s actually achievable within the constraints.
St Anne’s Almshouses, Appleby — Listed residential cottages. Work carried out with the care and precision that historic buildings demand, balancing the needs of the residents with the requirements of conservation.
Christ Church, Carlisle — A listed building project requiring close coordination with conservation officers and a thorough understanding of what interventions are permissible in a protected structure.
Newton Rigg – Biochar System — An innovative environmental project at a historic agricultural college site, combining forward-thinking sustainability with sensitivity to the existing built environment.
This kind of work builds a particular type of expertise. When you’ve spent years working out how to run modern electrical distribution through a 19th century stone building, or how to introduce heat pump technology into a property with solid walls and no cavity, you develop a different way of thinking about retrofit. And that matters enormously right now.
Net Zero: The Retrofit Reality in Cumbria
Cumbria wasn’t built with net zero in mind. Most of the county’s public buildings, healthcare estates, schools, and commercial properties were designed and built in an era when energy was cheap and carbon wasn’t on the agenda. That’s the reality. But it doesn’t mean those buildings can’t get there. It just means the path is more complicated, and requires engineers who understand retrofit rather than just new build.
We’re currently working with Westmorland & Furness Council on decarbonisation programmes. That work involves looking honestly at the buildings, identifying what’s achievable within realistic budgets, and setting out a credible route to reducing carbon, not just a target that looks good on paper. There’s a big difference between a net zero strategy and a net zero plan that actually works in the real world, on real buildings, with real funding constraints.
Not every building can be decarbonised fully in the short term, and not every intervention delivers the same return on investment. Good decarbonisation consultancy means helping clients understand that trade-off, not selling them a strategy they can’t deliver. We’ve done enough M&E work across Cumbria’s building stock to know what’s achievable, and what isn’t.
Our heritage experience feeds directly into this. If you know how to work sensitively with a listed building, you can work with any constrained retrofit. The problem-solving is similar: identify the actual constraints, find what’s permissible, design a solution that delivers real performance improvement within those limits. It’s harder than new build, but it’s where most of the county’s carbon challenge actually lies.
Projects like the Workington Leisure Centre Solar PV installation is an early example. Practical, deliverable projects that reduce carbon, reduce operating costs, and demonstrate what’s possible. That’s where decarbonisation starts, not with an aspiration document, but with something that gets built.
The Team Behind It
Our Carlisle team are all local, led by Julian Sargent, Associate Director, and includes Steve Tuner and Joel Collins as Principal Engineers, Senior Engineer David McQuillan. Supported by Trainee Engineers Matt Wilkinson and Josh Holman.
Julian was working at one of the local councils when our founder Steve met him. He then came to PSA and opened the Carlisle office, which he now does alongside running a small farm.
Joel came up through the tools as an electrician, worked on large healthcare projects across the region, and joined PSA eight years ago. That background matters. He understands what it looks like from the client’s side, the contractor’s side, and the designer’s side.
The team of six covers a wide range of disciplines, and, in Joel’s words, “there are no egos. We’re all trying to do the best job we can and support our clients achieve their goals.”
Part of the Community
Joining the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce is a chance for us to give back to the business community we’ve been a part of for over twenty years. We want to connect with other businesses in the county, share what we’ve learned over the years, and be useful to the wider community.
We’d welcome a conversation with any Chamber members who are working on building projects, thinking about retrofit, or want to understand what’s actually achievable for their estate. We know the region. We know the buildings.
Reach the Carlisle team via the PSA website, or through the Chamber directory.
More articles linked to this topic.
Read more about PSA joining the Cumbria Chamber of Commerce here. Cumbria Chamber of Commerce Welcomes Pettit Singleton Associates as Newest Partner Member – Cumbria Chamber of Commerce
Read an interview with Joel Collins about his role at PSA here. 5 Questions with Joel Collins – PSA
