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Category: Projects £7-10m Name: Jason Powell ICIOB Company: Dean & Dyball Construction Project: Sandy Park, Exeter Contract: NEC option A |
In building this sports facility, local boy Bob Rouse made good by meeting the 44-week hold-your-breath programme, as planned, the day before Exeter Chiefs played their first home rugby league game of the season.
Speed was of the essence, and Bob demonstrated strong professional leadership to deliver this prestigious project to the fast-track schedule without jeopardising either safety or quality.
But even before the project got under way, Bob had the small matter to address of a tender price £850,000 above the budget. Although not a design and construct scheme, the structure clearly had to be rigorously value-engineered.
Bob fired up the team to identify more than 100 additions and omissions, which took the excess off the tender bid. Given that the main steel frame had already effectively been designed and so could not be altered, Bob achieved the big cost savings by making the roof plant room an open rather than an enclosed structure, and respecifying many of the internal finishes.
With the budget on track, Bob gained on the programme by using the innovative Elliott pile-breaking method, which dispensed with the need to break down the pile tops by hand or machine. Installing CFA piles to a general depth of eight metres in this way greatly reduced the health and safety risks as well as delivering significant time gains.
For the project, Bob chose only highly motivated management staff with a fast-track track record prepared to work six days a week to get the job done. He also built an excellent working relationship with the client and design team, introducing onsite technical reviews for the site team to engender a full appreciation of what was expected.
And client expectations were undoubtedly high. The stadium was also designed to function as a four-star conference and banqueting facility, so quality was paramount. Bob put inspection test plans in place to run in parallel with the contract programme and regularly audited the works.
Bob has delivered a superb building – in the process erecting 530 tons of steel and a 100m long and 40m high cable-stay footbridge – that met all the client's challenging aspirations on price, programme and perfection.
