Phase One goes to Birmingham

Birmingham’s new construction professionals were out en masse last night, at the latest of Building’s Phase One networking parties.

More than 100 crammed into trendy warehouse venue The Custard Factory to hear from local construction heroes, meet their peers and enjoy a few drinks – including our blue signature cocktail, the noxious Phase One Fling.

First up was QS legend David Bucknall, overjoyed to see so many of his successors in one place and on exuberant form.

Since he started out, 51 years ago, the industry had become “a damn sight more complex and a damn sight more challenging,” he told the undaunted crowd. But he had some advice too: “There’s a huge emphasis on becoming technically excellent when you’re starting and that is pretty important, but the main thing the industry is looking for now is not to be the same old, same old.”

And if you want to build strong teams onsite, there’s only one answer: get down the pub. “ If you can, pluck up the courage and invite people – I don’t want you to become alcoholics, but if you make the first move and get to know people outside working hours, it makes things work a lot better.”

At the other end of his career, 29-year-old Neil Edginton told a curious crowd how he’d come to set up BuildAbility, the contractor established by Birmingham Development Company to build The Cube. “

After a degree in Town and Country Planning, Edginton became an assistant QS and moved into project management and then onto the client side from there. There was a common theme at each stage of his career sidesteps: “They asked me what I knew about QSing. I said ‘not a lot’ but I promised to be a keen learner.”

The Cube will be on the site of the prestigious Mailbox, and sounds like an architects dream: “We didn’t say ‘we want this many offices and this many apartments’, we had a red line on a plan, we said here’s the site, there’s no budget but we’ll value it as we go along.” Ken Shuttleworth’s Make Architects beat the ensuing rush with their cube design, but finding a contractor proved much harder. “We’d got the design to F1 stage, which is really detailed, we’d got a funding facility from Lloyds TSB for £92m, and we’d sold 137 of the 244 apartments in two weeks with no discounts or anything. Then we went to the construction market and we thought that would be the easy bit.” Alas no. “Construction costs are getting higher, the A teams are busy on PFI, the Olympics, and the Cube wasn’t really on their radar. If you’re outside London, it’s hard to get contractors interested unless you put big risk premiums on.”

Did he always want to set up his own firm, someone asked. “I always wanted to do something different. I had no ambition at all to set up a contractor but I’m really pleased we’ve done it.”

Someone else wanted to know how he commanded respect when he’s so young. “I don’t know, I’ll let you know when I’ve commanded it.. the guys in BuildAbility are in their 50s, they’ve got so much construction knowledge. But there are two things. I graft – if they want to work 20 hours, I’ll work 21. And the projects we’re on, it’s a massive learning curve for everyone because nothing like this has been done before."

But his parting shot was to enjoy it: “And we’re all here drinking, so we must be enjoying it. Cheers!”

All that was left to do before the networking commenced in earnest was draw the raffle. Lucky winners walked off with a magnum of champagne from Shepherd Construction, free tickets to Thomas Vale’s prestigious golf day at Edgbaston Golf Course, and, from BuildAbility, a European break for two including flights and accommodation. And they made £240 for training charity The Prince’s Trust too. Not bad for a night’s networking…