Name: James Murphy
Employer: Willmott Dixon Construction Limited
Project: Chessington Community College, Chessington
Contract: JCT 2005
It may seem ironic, but it is the construction manager’s handling of the non-construction world that is often the key to a successful project.
That was the case for James Murphy. He was building a replacement school on a very constrained site. Temporary classrooms were placed on the small playing field while the demolition of the old school and construction of the new one proceeded in stages. As a result, students had to move around the site between temporary teaching facilities, existing blocks, and areas under construction.
James’s safety ethos was impeccable. He repeatedly reconfigured the walkway routes for the complex and constrained site. And he took the expensive decision to employ a full-time gatesman at the single shared site/school access point to hold back lorries until they could be safely escorted onto site.
He was a fine ambassador. He welcomed site visits from pupils
– indeed, the whole school visited one day. He accompanied teachers to inspect their new facilities. He addressed school assemblies. He escorted a mass of external visitors, including architects and headteachers for other schools about to engage in BSF rebuilds. He even showed students how to construct a brick wall – a particular pleasure for a man who started out as a bricklayer.
James promoted core values to help make everyone onsite feel they were contributing to a common goal. He succeeded. The success with which the team pulled together under his leadership can be gauged by its response to the loss of the roofer and precast supplier to bankruptcy. The buy-in of the subcontractors triumphantly delivered James’s resequencing.
Value: £21.4m