Ronald Barrott: ‘I’m not looking to take any lessons from Dubai at all’

Speed of development

As far as I’m concerned, Abu Dhabi’s pace will be maintained, if not increased. We are expanding and developing the capital city of the UAE using a sustainable economic growth model. In other words, we’re developing existing businesses and creating new businesses and diversifying away from oil and gas. Those businesses need to be populated by people coming in to live and work and make Abu Dhabi their home. The population is due to grow by a minimum of 3 million by 2030, and to a maximum of 5 million. [It is currently 850,000.]

Lessons from Dubai

I’m not looking to take any lessons from Dubai at all – it’s a totally different market.

Everything in Abu Dhabi is happening as you’d expect in any mature market. It’s just happening quicker. The government is keen to see the capital city grow in a very sustainable, very professional manner. They are committed to making sure the infrastructure is in place ahead of development. Aldar is already engaged together with TDIC [Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company] in developing and constructing over 26 km of 10-lane highways with light rail in the middle of it down the eastern seaboard.

Building on natural habitats

We’re expanding a capital city, and we’ve got to use land to do that, but it is a controlled release of land, now actively managed and co-ordinated through the Urban Planning Council. This is the only government that has a planning authority of this nature in the whole Middle East. Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 [the government’s urban plan] showed areas of ecology around the city that are being looked after, such as the mangroves to the east and west and wetland areas to the east. We’ve got 200 natural islands around the city and very dynamic intercoastal waterways, which are fabulous, and we’re looking to protect and enhance them. So we’re not just building indiscriminately. We’re doing a lot of brownfield development too. If you travel around the city, you’ll see we’re pulling down buildings that are past their sell-by date and redeveloping them.

Building sustainably

From the day we start drawing a new masterplan for one of the new communities or major extensions of the city, we’re designing it to be sustainable. We’re ensuring that people can live, work and play within the communities we’re building – that means making sure that jobs are within an acceptable radius of where people live, and that there are recreational facilities. Then we tie these communities together using solar transport systems such as light rail.

We’re leading the way on green building technology here. We were originally developing to [US sustainability code] LEED. Now, we are adapting to new regulations that the government has just put in place. They are basically taking the best from around the world and tailoring them to the issues we have to deal with here.

Everything in Abu Dhabi is happening as you’d expect in any mature market. It’s just happening quicker. The government is keen to see the capital city grow in a very sustainable, very professional manner

Material and labour costs

We have joint venture construction groups, with Laing O’Rourke, with Cebarco [from Bahrain] and Besix [from Belgium] and we have a very close understanding of the marketplace.

We have our own readymix concrete companies through joint venture, so we’re controlling a very basic but very essential commodity. As a business, we have a very sophisticated system for buying across our whole portfolio.

Inflation is inevitable in this sort of market but on the whole it’s under control. Most of it comes from the price of residential leasing going up at the moment. Material costs are going up but that’s across the world through the cost of oil, which has a knock-on across all industry. We’ve dealt with it, and it hasn’t delayed any of our projects or caused us any sleepless nights.

Health and safety

We go out of our way to set standards for workers’ accommodation and for safety. The communities we’ve created for housing our workforce lead the way, and even the temporary ones are probably some of the best for this type of accommodation. We’re now in the throes of building a permanent facility for more than 100,000 people.

We’ve got 81 million man hours without a problem – other companies here can’t say that. We’re also helping others now to improve their standards. We’ve run two health and safety conferences over the last two years.

Taking sanctions against contractors who don’t improve

This is something we are looking at, and making the necessary representations to the appropriate government ministry.

Any contractor looking to work with Aldar has to undertake to meet our standards of health and safety and welfare, and if they’re not prepared to do that then we don’t want to engage them. We are ruthless in that respect. If a contractor that we’re engaged with does not adhere to our ways of doing something, even if they’re half way through a job, their contract will be terminated.

We’ve got 200 natural islands around the city and very dynamic intercoastal waterways, which are fabulous, and we’re looking to protect them and enhance them. So we’re not just building indiscriminately

Teaming up with contractors

Aldar is radically different to any other company in this part of the world in the way it goes about its work. When I arrived, we used the FIDIC contract, with contractors not getting engaged until after the tendering stage when the building was fully designed. Contractors just priced it and delivered it. Now we’ve got the contractors engaged a lot earlier, in a competitive manner. They’re an integral part of the team to deliver these projects, not just the tail-end Charlie.

Joint ventures give us increased speed to site, the contractor’s input into the design, and its programming expertise. If we can get our projects to site quicker, often our costs are equal to, if not below, the market.

Selecting consultants

We have an internal team that vets suppliers as they approach us. Unless they’re on our approved list, they’re not cleared to work for Aldar. It’s intensive – we’re looking at the resources the company has, the ability to do work in this part of the world, the financial stability of the business. If a company has that information, and can sit down with us and satisfy us, the whole thing can happen in less than a month.

We're looking for normal QSing

and project management and various design disciplines. We engage bespoke project managers – we would take project management from one of the large firms but we'd have to make sure it was a real part of the business. Our QSs have to standalone and be impartial with their advice. You can't have a QS and a project manager as part of the same firm.

Future plans

Our primary role is to spearhead the development of Abu Dhabi, and other areas within the emirate. We’re already in Al Ain, which is the second largest city, and in Ruwais, a small town two hours away, servicing the oil industry. We’re looking to expand in the western region.

We’re also overseas, with a 6 million ft2 mixed-use development in the heart of Kazakhstan called Abu Dhabi Plaza, and we’re in South Johor in Malaysia, masterplanning an extension to the city. They’re two emerging markets and sensible commercial opportunities.

If something comes across my desk, we’d look at it, but at the moment we’re not actively seeking to go elsewhere. I think we’re expanding quickly enough at the moment.