Hansom

Tessa takes charge

The word in Olympic circles is that Tessa Jowell is set to become full-time Olympics minister sooner rather than later. One well-placed source tells me: “The only way to do it is to have one minister with responsibility solely for the Olympics.” Meanwhile, Jowell’s statements on cost overruns for the aquatic centre have put noses out of joint because they suggested she’s running the construction programme, which is the job of David Higgins, the new Olympic Delivery Authority chief. Not that Jowell isn’t his boss, but it does beg the question: how much politicking is going to go on? And how much is that going to stop Higgins from doing his job?

Lucky kids …

Christmas came early for at least one guest last week at the National Specialist Contractors Council annual lunch. Stephen Williams, HSE chief inspector of construction, was distracted from the glittering array of prizes offered in the NSCC raffle by the somewhat cheaper contents of a Christmas cracker lying on the table. Construction’s top safety watchdog was, somewhat bizarrely, overjoyed when he discovered he’d stumbled across a padlock set, which he swiftly put away for safe keeping. One for the kids? Or perhaps the perfect way to detain irresponsible contractors heading home after a few glasses of champagne …

£6? Bah humbug!

It seems that the £6 budget we allocated to design a house (see pages 34-40) might have been a little generous. I gather at a recent away day organised by English Partnerships, no less, staff were thrown the challenge of coming up with the 60p house. The winning design, my spies tell me, was a very inventive wigwam made from paper and pipecleaners, dubbed the EP-Teepee.

You saw him here first

It was good to see Building graduate advisory board member Dan Kola of Mace hit our television screens last week. Kola (pictured above) was forced to give several interviews to TV news crews after the project he has been working on – the redevelopment of New Briars Primary School in Hatfield, Hertfordshire – was closed two weeks before the start of the Christmas holidays because of subsidence fears caused by an old chalk mine. Kola has assured Building that, despite his new-found celebrity status, he will still have time to fit us into his schedule.

Many a Christmas ruined

Oh dear, it seems the JCT has got itself into a bit of a pre-Christmas stress. It appears that in the rush to publish one of its revamped 2005 suite of contracts – the JCT collateral warranties – before 2005 is no more, mistakes were made. Copies reached the shops last Thursday but were hastily withdrawn when someone spotted a printing error. A JCT spokesperson informed my colleague that the release date has now been put back to

6 January 2006. So, sorry chaps, anyone hoping to receive a special Christmas offering in the form of a gift-wrapped JCT 2005 collateral warranty will be cruelly denied.

A great deal of cooks

Talking of 2012, last Thursday the Strategic Forum’s Olympic taskforce, including Peter Rogers and Graham Watts, popped into City Hall to brief Ken Livingstone on construction-related matters. The meeting by all accounts went rather well but the London mayor’s jaw must have hit the floor when he was presented with a chart of Olympic stakeholders drawn up by the taskforce. Rather than a simple command structure, it revealed a veritable spaghetti junction of 27 different bodies that need to be consulted before you can do anything. Still want to stick around until 2012, Ken?