Name: Paul Heald
Employer: Morgan Sindall
Project: Salford Schools PFI – Harrop Fold School Worsley
On this scheme to build two new schools to replace two existing facilities, Paul Heald successfully saw off a set of challenges rarely met with on a single project.
First, there was a worrying legacy problem. From his first meetings, Paul realised that the first wave of schools built for the client had not been a success. By putting his project faith in clear, honest and non-confrontational communications, he slowly but successfully achieved an astonishing U-turn in attitudes that has brought accolades and repeat business from an initially hesitant client.
Then there were the neighbours, who showed a quite exceptional degree of hostility toward the two schemes. Determined to show the community it would benefit from the works, Paul engaged 90% of site operatives from the local area and initiated regular forum meetings with residents. He listened to their concerns and acted on them, running the sites to cause minimal disruption. He improved relationships by donating fencing to neighbours, getting site operatives to put out residents’ bins, removing grafitti, providing a parking area for site workers, and not allowing site waste and rubbish to accumulate.
But the biggest bomb of all was dropped when, with the substructure works well under way, the client decided on a fundamental redesign of one of the schools to reflect a downsizing of the school roll from 1,200 to 900.
Paul took it on himself to resequence the phasing to allow the redesign to be completed without delaying the final handover. The redesign affected every part of the school, including the main steel frame, but Paul’s proactive approach gave the stakeholders time to properly consider the redesign while site works progressed. He even had additional piles installed to anticipate any change in column locations while the rigs were still onsite to avoid the expense and delay of subsequently remobilising them.
Even though he could have reasonably argued for an extension of time, Paul decided that the right thing to do was to make sure the school could open on time. That it ultimately did was thanks to his initiative and determination.
Value: £35m