Name: John Holder FCIOB
Employer: Laing O'Rourke
Project: The Pod, Bottle Lane , Nottingham
Contract: JCT 98
New to Laing O’Rourke and not yet onsite, John Holder took the courageous decision to tell the client the bad news: the construction programme set during the first-stage tender was just too short. Another 11 weeks was needed for the substructure period to deal properly with the complexity of the foundations, the restricted nature of the city centre site and the need to temporarily support the adjoining roads and properties.
But once he’d argued – and won – the point, John never looked back. His insistence on a no-shocks project culture actually worked in his favour. His clear ownership of the project, highlighting of potential issues at the earliest stage and willingness to resolve them won him the confidence of the key stakeholders.
And, of course, he was right. The site sloped by 5m and was tightly constrained: the building footprint was the site. It sat above a former mainline railway tunnel that required a major transfer structure. The local tram network skirted the site, which swarmed with high-voltage supply cables. A live substation had to be moved – twice – and the discovery of unmapped caves in the sandstone brought the archaeologists in.
John’s proactive and focused problem-solving style paid off repeatedly with buildability issues and the programme implications. His advice greatly enhanced the design, in particular by incorporating the hotel operator’s standards into the contract. And he was a superbly effective communicator and negotiator with the many third parties.
His calm, dedicated and committed approach time and again brought the project back onto its challenging programme. He rapidly overcame challenges such as the loss of two key subcontractors to administration in the final few weeks, procuring replacements with minimal loss of time.
John pulled the project onto budget with client-attended value-engineering workshops. His initiatives included omitting screeds, reusing the climbing formwork for the concrete cores to hang scaffolding, eliminating double-slab construction by introducing a fold in the ground slab, and putting feature slots in the facade so cantilever scaffolding could be punched through.
John’s immense efforts delivered this politically charged landmark development on time, on budget, to the client’s satisfaction, paeans of praise from the local media, and widespread public approval. An impressive achievement.