Name: Phillip Jones MCIOB
Employer: Kier Northern
Project: Morrisons Store and PFS, Halifax
Contract: JCT 2005
Phil Jones’s superb management of this exceedingly difficult scheme guaranteed an outstanding outcome. The contract had been won against stiff competition in open tender, so the margin was tight indeed, but Phil’s leadership delivered it for £500K less than the contract sum and with an improved final margin.
It’s hard to know where to start on the scheme’s challenges. For example, the new store was built at the rear of an existing store, which continued to trade until 12 weeks before completion. Then there were the two high-voltage cables that ran through the middle of the new build. The 5m reduction in the ground level required by the scheme left the live cables in a 3m-high embankment until 15 weeks before handover.
Phil managed the risk exceptionally well and brilliantly sequenced his way around the problem. He changed the steel-frame design so he could progress the structure despite the embankment.
He tackled the external works and filling station in the area of the old store with drive and despatch. With the area unavailable until 12 weeks before handover, five weeks of which would be taken up by the asbestos strip and demolition, he had just seven weeks to install extensive drainage, carry out a major cut and fill and build retaining walls and the filling station. He changed the filling station kiosk to timber frame, and carefully phased the subcontractor onslaught (at one point there were 12 excavators onsite and 200 operatives) to reach practical completion on time, below budget and to an impressive quality with minimal snags.
Value: £10.9m