Name: Ian Hazelton MCIOB
Employer: Willmott Dixon Construction
Project: The Golden Lane Campus, London EC1Y
Contract: JCT 98
Finding something unexpected in the ground is always a setback, but the discovery of the remains of 10,000 bodies under the site came close to burying Ian Hazelton’s project altogether.
With a long-closed Victorian cemetery thought to be somewhere in the vicinity, 15 precautionary boreholes had been sunk to determine whether anything remained. A solitary bone had been turned up, so the project had gone ahead, only for the site preparation works to uncover the grisly truth: a 20th century warehouse development must have uncovered the remains, and reburied them elsewhere and far deeper.
Aware of how important the project was to the client – it replaced three separate crumbling facilities in the borough and had been 20 years in the making – and that cancellation would have been a huge disappointment, Ian put huge effort into making it happen. His we-can-work-it-out approach persuaded the client to stay in the game, and he developed successful exhumation and cost containment solutions.
The project was already £1m in deficit and Ian knew he had to generate savings all the way through the contract. By identifying savings on 350 items, he was able to build at the target cost without compromising the integrity of the building. Ian won even more respect for taking a pragmatic and realistic line on subsequent client variations, rather than exploiting them to inflate an already tight margin.
Delayed by the bodies (and the discovery of massive concrete foundations left by the 20th century warehouse) by 26 weeks, he then reinvigorated the project. Having worked with the client team and engineers before, Ian hit the ground running. He understood the management dynamic of a proactive client and three headmistresses, and managed the stakeholder relationships with aplomb. Having done his homework, he knew the project was more about the users than the building itself.
Strong technically, firm on the programme and passionate about quality, Ian led this project with style. He demonstrated an awesome ability to build, support, motivate and control his team, and drove through a triumphant project.