My project

Shepherd Construction has been contracted by English Cities Fund (ECF) - a joint venture between AMEC, English Partnership and Legal & General) - to deliver two phases of the St Paul’s Square project.

In total this is a 400,000sq ft, mixed-use development located in the city’s commercial district. At the moment we are involved in a race against time to deliver phase two as our neighbours – solicitors Hill Dickenson who will help Liverpool host the European Capital of Culture in 2008 – are due to shortly move into the eight storey office block which was part of phase one. So it’s been all been about getting the logistics right from both a structural and trade relations perspective.

Phase Two is a £23m development comprising of a 17,000m², eight-storey office building. Early designs for the building originally specified five concrete cores, but this would have taken 104 weeks to deliver - longer than the client wanted – and also required two tower cranes pushing up costs and taking us over budget.

As a solution, Billingtons came to us with the idea of using Bi-Steel Corefast – which would reduce the number of cores to three and shave 12 weeks off the programme - it means we can achieve client hand over three months early! Reducing the number of cores also reduced the building footprint – alowibng the client to maximise marketable space in the building.

I’ve literally seen everything go up before my eyes – really fast, like clockwork. The cranage requirements were known beforehand and whilst this was the first time we had worked using Corefast, Billingtons had used the system on a previous project and so the learning curve was reduced. The central core took just 21 weeks and Billingtons were able to get on the job in week two instead of the usual eight to 12 weeks. Using the bi-steel core also meant that we didn’t have to go about the tricky business of erecting steel frame around a concrete core, when you need to have somebody welding the bracket to the shaft. With no interface to manage its one less headache for us to contend with as the cores are part of the frame.

At St Paul’s we’re currently trialling an initiative together with BRE that has focused on building new working practices. Called CLIP the scheme involves all trades coming onto site – from ground works, roofers, structural steel to the envelope specialists – and basically involves monthly sessions when we all get together to look at work programmes, identify where there are clashes and get a clear steer on what’s coming up in the preceding weeks. It’s essentially about getting logistics right and getting different trades to work together rather than clash.

Working with site manager Ann Marie Mooney, the CLIP scheme has been developed to help provide a level of transparency which enables both Shepherds and the sub-contractors to know exactly what the other is up to, and exactly how long something will take, at any given time on the project. Under the rules of the scheme all activity must take no longer than four days. With daily meetings we make sure that the different trades have space for their activity, and if the site is going to be busy on one day – we make sure they get priority on another. There’s no room for sub-contractors running late, but its helping to create a much clearer understanding between all the firms coming onto site, so from the other perspective when there has been a problem we sit up and listen.

It’s still early days, but if the trial does continue to progress successfully it will be the catalyst for change in the way we operate across all our sites.