Name: Stewart Blyth ICIOB
Employer: Carillion Building
Project: Morrisons, Bristol
Contract: JCT 98
Having built four other superstores for Morrisons, on time and to budget, Stewart Blyth must have felt pretty confident about this one, the biggest to date. Back with virtually the same A-list management team who had proved such a successful combination on the previous projects, all he had to do was knock another fine building off the conveyor belt.
If only. For the first time ever, Stewart found that controlling events outside the building was a great deal more challenging than getting it right inside the building. Landlocked by the gardens of a housing estate, council offices and a pub, the site was located in an area with a high number of drug addicts and plagued by vandalism. Every night the local hooligans would try to demolish the security fencing and only constant vigilance – and a bigger security budget – kept the site intact.
The need to negotiate design, phasing and access with the council and neighbouring tenants delayed the project’s extensive external works and areas adjacent to the many party walls. Unable to secure pre-approval from highways and drainage service providers working flat-out, Stewart found himself continually rephasing and working out of sequence to relieve the intense pressure on the practical completion date.
The client’s commercial imperatives mean it never postpones a store’s opening date, but hamstrung by the programme delays, Stewart offered a perfect compromise. He gained a week’s extension to complete the building and the car park by allowing Morrisons to fit out the store in the same week so that it could still open on schedule.
Morrisons was not so much satisfied as delighted. Stewart had not only delivered on the completion date, he had delivered on a completion date that had been brought forward by a whopping four months after the contract was signed. This admirable achievement must be attributed to Stewart’s exceptional planning, determination and leadership.