Hampshire's John Ekins, the last county surveyor in the country, retires this week after what he describes as "a wonderful career."

Mr Ekins, 60 today (Friday), leaves at a time when council surveying and planning departments throughout England have been merged under the word, "environment".

He studied civil engineering at Portsmouth College of Technology and he has worked for the county council surveyor's department for more than 40 years, becoming deputy county surveyor in 1985 and county surveyor from 1989.

Fareham-born Mr Ekins joined Hampshire County Council as a civil engineering trainee in 1962 and did a sandwich course.

"After that, I stayed on. The county has been a remarkable place to work and a huge opportunity for a civil engineer because of the scale of activity and diversity it offers."

He has been involved in highway design and maintenance and management of the direct labour organisation.

Under his direction, the county has seen big changes in transport telematics-providing electronic information at bus stops, for instance-transport awareness, the Light Rapid Transport system and waste management.

"I am very pleased that there have been many areas where we have developed new ideas," he said.

"The present policies have been a development of the good work done by my predecessor, Arthur Jacomb. The LRT that will connect Portsmouth, Gosport and Fareham is at the stage where bids are being evaluated to build, operate and maintain the system for 30 years.

"We have tried to make people aware that if we are to preserve the planet, we have to travel less and generate less waste. So we said: 'You should modify your transport behaviour by sharing cars, using cycles, public transport, making fewer journeys.' I think people have listened. And the public is much more aware of the environment. Young people are very aware."

But Mr Ekins said he thought the Government's transport policy was in a muddle.

"The Conservative government started a big debate about transport policy and John Prescott followed that up with a raft of policies and a 10-year plan from 1998. But the Government faltered when it gave in to the fuel protesters two years ago. We now don't have the fuel price escalator, which was one policy beginning to take effect in lessening the number of car journeys people made, since they thought twice about spending more money on petrol. I don't think we have a viable policy now."

The energy-recovery-from-waste incinerators at Basingstoke, Portsmouth and Marchwood were now "on their way."

This part of the waste strategy plan had been hotly contested during the '90s by the environmental group, Communities Against Toxics. "That was a hard-fought campaign," he agreed.

"It was a very polarised and in a way, not real. The real danger from waste is not doing anything about it. We got up to recycling about 25% of waste. But then waste levels went up. The new materials recovery facilities at Alton and Portsmouth will get us back on track."

The enormously busy life Mr Ekins has led will slow down a bit now, but perhaps not that much.

He says he still hopes "to potter with a bit of civil engineering".

"I am churchwarden at St Peter's, Titchfield, and that could be quite busy. I want to relax with my wife, Judy, who has been a huge support in my career. And I want to spend more time with painting and music and cooking," he said.

In a parting shot at the reorganisation that has seen the end of departments headed by people such as himself - professional civil engineers, he said: "We have a fashion in local government where people running services seem to be generalists more than professionals.

"I believe in professional accountability. It's like the railways. Railtrack was run by a series of businessmen who did not know about railways. Now those running Network Rail are professional railway people."

Mr Ekins is a member of the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers, fellow of the Transport Research Foundation, honorary doctor of engineering at Portsmouth University and visiting professor at Southampton University. He was appointed OBE in 1998.

Under restructuring, which resulted in Mr Ekins' job becoming redundant, Alison Quant is now the county's environment director, a post which now embraces county surveying.