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Category: Projects £10-15m Name: Neville Dale Company: Willmott Dixon Project: Xcel Leisure Complex, Walton-on-Thames Contract: JCT 1998 with contractor's design |
Delivery doesn't come much better than this. Three weeks early, £200,000 under budget and winning client satisfaction ratings of 95%, Neville Dale's project also turned Willmott Dixon into contractor of choice for the leisure centre developer it formed a consortium with for this centre, and in the running for £50m of new work.
Neville's attention to every detail, both in client relationships and onsite management, was outstanding on this project, the first major leisure centre to be funded by a public-private partnership.
He developed the good relationships established during the bid process by holding monthly team meetings with all stakeholders. He encouraged the council client to walk the site regularly and talk to the subcontractors. He installed an electronic noticeboard at the site, showing number of days to completion and safety scores. And he set up a webcam with a live feed to the council website so everyone could view progress.
Communication and teamwork were fundamental – and underpinned by Neville's open and honest approach. He emphasised the advantages of verbal communication to create a friendly working atmosphere without the need for formal emails and letters. And he made clear from the start his one-team philosophy: if one failed, all failed.
He held weekly subcontractor team meetings to ensure progress and make sure his policy of zero defects was adhered to. He obtained the defects schedules from other leisure centre projects to ensure that previous mistakes would not be repeated. Three months before completion, he asked the leisure centre's operators to list what they would regard as a perfect building and had them inspect the works each week. And he set up a dedicated snagging team with a named representative from each subcontractor on it.
Neville also performed some excellent value engineering, allowing him to satisfy at no extra cost the client's mid-construction wish for a climbing wall 12m high rather than 9m. And to create more space for other facilities, he relocated the pool's plant room to a basement and its rams (for raising and lowering the pool floor) to the pool surround to give easier maintenance access.
Neville's exemplary leadership produced a building that client, partner, design team, subcontractors and Willmott Dixon all profited from and are proud of.
