Name: Richard German MCIOB
Employer: Kier Eastern
Project: HMP Norwich New "A" Wing & Ancillaries, Norwich
Contract: PPC 2000
Richard German’s sure appreciation of when to innovate and when to replicate delivered an excellent project.
He quickly realised the client’s concept design would be too expensive, and championed the precast flat-panel wall and floor solution that Kier was using at another prison. It locked in a £400K saving, and gave Richard a template to work from and a model the client could visit.
With the frame issues having been worked out by the previous project, he then innovated on the roof construction. He replaced the traditional purlin and composite insulated sheet with a cassette cladding system. Although more expensive, it eliminated scaffold and a great deal of work at height, and offered better quality.
Richard had the access option of a back entrance to the prison used by a previous project. Aware of the many neighbour issues that had been raised by an access road through the congested residential area, he turned it down. Instead, he created a new entrance (by a car park that he used as lorry waiting area) that avoided the residential area and could be more easily managed by the prison.
Richard’s approach was so successful that a long succession of site setbacks was unable to knock him off course. The setbacks included the surprise discovery of ordnance (at one stage the prison had been a barracks). And five key subcontractors went bust before they’d finished.
Richard still finished on budget and five weeks early, handing over a very high quality building with zero defects at practical completion.
Value: £23.3m