Residential over 4 storeys

Stephen Bradbury has achieved the most difficult of challenges: providing the commitment, resolve, realism, credibility and clear-sighted decision making needed to turn round a project in difficulty.

Parachuted in six months after site start with the project already 10 weeks behind, Bradbury built a relationship of mutual respect and understanding with the client on the basis of no surprises and delivering on commitments.

With the customer stressing quality at this stage – the town houses had a typical price of £13m apiece – he refashioned the site team to mirror and work with the design team, reverting to a more conventional site arrangement as the various packages went live.

Putting the design team at the heart of the development helped the construction team unite to tackle the project’s substantial problems. The strong and positive dialogue that Bradbury established early on with the designers and the supply chain ultimately brought the project safely through.

Visible and approachable on site, Bradbury reinvigorated morale by quickly completing the installation of the heavily delayed transfer slab, a critical element in the programme.

He made it his business to ensure everyone more than 600 operatives plus 40 managers had the same project goals by holding weekly team meetings and encouraging active participation.

He also took much-needed control of costs, producing a new budget to account for variations and the likely outturn cost with 20 months remaining, and held monthly meetings to report project expenditure against the forecast final accounts. The ensuing cost certainty including another budget revision upwards to cope with more project enhancements and three package contractors going bust brought settlement of the final account within eight weeks of completion.

Bradbury also handled health and safety exceptionally. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly scheme for praiseworthy or shameful observed site practices was particularly successful. And he created a highly effective marketing suite, designing, maintaining and redesigning PPE-free and superbly presented routes through the site for potential well-heeled purchasers.

Silver

Steve Vorres I Project director, Taylor Woodrow Construction, Victoria Wharf, Cardiff, phases 1 and 2: construction of 268 apartments in multistorey blocks, completed in 135 weeks, £34m,JCT 1998 D&B

The best has never been quite good enough for Steve Vorres. He is an exceptional leader who drove this project to deliver everything required of it and then some more.

Crucially for this high-profile three-phase development of seven residential blocks between seven and 15 storeys high, Vorres welded together a client and construction team with a single outcome-based purpose.

He also combined superb leadership skills with strategic planning and organisation, bringing the design team and key suppliers into the process. He gave subcontractors input in the selection of other subcontractors whose work would interface with their own.

Vorres’s clear direction and confidence not only engendered a collaborative ethos, but also resulted in everyone giving their all in a project that oozed achievement. His skill, determination and effective negotiation steered the consultants, suppliers and client team into realising the necessary high-quality and durable design.

Asked to bring forward the first two blocks by up to 14 weeks, Vorres drove forward the measures needed for this business-critical move to meet year-end accounts and bulldozed aside potential roadblocks.

With this project, Vorres has given an expert demonstration of how to build an integrated team that fully mobilises the skills of all its members and delivered an excellent development for the client and a satisfactory commercial result for all.

Highly Commended

• Harry Dainton ICIOB (Miller Homes) for City One, Preston
• Bob Warren (Laing O’Rourke) for the Hicking Building, Nottingham
• Mark Williams ACIOB (Allenbuild) for Grays Inn Road Buildings, London