Mace poaches Laing O’Rourke manager for Shard

Mace has poached a senior project director from Laing O’Rourke to run its work on the Shard, in a sign of its confidence that the controversial tower will go ahead.

Tim Goldby has joined the firm, which is to build the 312m tower at London Bridge under a fixed-price contract, as project director responsible for delivering the scheme. He will work alongside Ian Eggers, the current project director on the job, to bulk up the management team.

The appointment comes as Mace waits to hear whether its price for the project in the £2bn London Bridge Quarter will be accepted by Teighmore, the scheme’s developer, which consists of Sellar Property Group and four Qatari investors.

The firm is believed to have tabled a bid of about £435m, £85m above the original price estimate of £350m. This follows value engineering exercises on areas including the M&E package, which brought the bid down from a reported £450m.

Sellar has maintained that the project will go ahead despite funding difficulties. These led to a delay in demolition work earlier this year. The developer has already appointed contractors to a number of specialist packages including the piling, which will be carried out by Stent, the steelwork, which has gone to Cleveland Bridge, and the cladding which will be done by Scheldebouw.

Mace agreed to carry out the project under a fixed-price contract last year, having originally bid for it as a construction management job, after Sellar considered replacing it with Laing O’Rourke.

The scheme is project managed by Bernard Ainsworth; cost consultant Turner & Townsend was appointed earlier this year with a remit to drive down costs.