Name: Glenn Batchlor
Employer: GB Building Solutions
Project: Smyth House, St Andrews Hospital , Northampton
Contract: JCT 98
To a client whose bitter experience of construction schemes was that they were all too often over-budget, overdue and overrun with problems, Glenn Batchlor was the answer to a prayer. Understanding (and acting on) the client’s drivers is not an academic, let’s-get-this-over-with exercise for Glenn, but the only way he knows how to build.
A tidy site is sometimes regarded as of much less importance than the big issues of programme, price and quality, but for the client it was key. Glenn was building a mental health facility in the middle of a live psychiatric hospital, and the vulnerable patients had access to the entire area surrounding the construction site. The client was concerned about the self-harming possibilities offered by construction materials left lying around.
But Glenn ran a spectacularly clean site. No materials or tools were ever left lying around, and Glenn minimised traffic risk to patients by storing materials at a nearby tennis court and craning them into the construction site.
When problems arose, Glenn communicated them immediately and openly, which further boosted the level of trust. The increasingly confident client was relieved to be able to stand back from the works and let the construction team get on with it. Through effective management and in-depth understanding of the critical path, Glenn kept the programme on target, hitting all deadlines to effective completion.
Just as importantly, Glenn delivered the budget. He used his experience of building another facility, Malcolm Arnold House, for the client to value-engineer Smyth House with skill and success.
For example, he changed the traditional thick slate roof used on Malcolm Arnold to a liner sheet on the rafters and sheet rails on the roof supporting lighter and much cheaper slates. He also re-engineered the ventilation turrets, incorporating the secondary steelwork into the roof so the turrets could be placed directly on the upstands; it saved time and money and allowed the roof to be waterproofed much more quickly.
And with Glenn acting swiftly to dismiss any subcontractor who didn’t perform, quality too was delivered to a very happy client.