Thames barriers

First impressions of Barking, after leaving the train station, are not good. A mishmash of unattractive, 1960s buildings which look as if they’ve just been plonked down without thought for how they might look together.

The walk down to the town centre is equally uninspiring architecturally, although the fact that it’s pedestrianised is pleasant. And you won’t be passing Monsoons or M&S here, although Vicarage shopping centre does boast a New Look and an Asda.

In short Barking is run down, unemployed and desperately in need of regeneration. Which is why it’s part of government plans under the Thames Gateway project to build 120,000 homes, create 180,000 jobs and rekindle the fortunes of dozens of towns from East London to Southend and north Kent by 2016 (see box overleaf).

It sounds like a construction bonanza. But Barking Central, a shiny new apartment block and Lifelong Learning Centre taking shape in the town centre where the library used to be, highlights how difficult it can be to create a successful scheme.

Barking Central looked to be foundering 14 months ago when Wates stopped work after contractual problems with the original developer Urban Catalyst. The situation was rescued in January when Redrow Regeneration stepped in to take over the scheme for a “nominal consideration”, and it was only after some significant changes and some tough negotiation that the scheme was put back on track again.

“They had agreed for certain type of development with things added in like the learning centre, creche, cafe, public areas,” says Redrow Regeneration’s MD John Ireland. “What they had not realised was there was not the money coming back to pay for it.”

Contractor Ardmore, on a design and build contract, faced a challenging task. It had to pick up where Wates had left off, while accommodating a redesign which included more flats and a slimmed down learning centre fit-out.

Standard structure

Residential work is bread and butter for Ardmore. Nothing really challenging there, says Ardmore’s project manager, Colm Gallagher. He rattles through the structure. Reinforced concrete frame; box-style frame with cementitious board on the inner skin. “It’s pretty standard but something we proposed,” says Gallagher. “It’s cleaner and faster than blockwork.” On the outside elevations is

Trespa cladding – another change in specification. The internal elevations, originally clad too, will now be Sto render.

A longstanding relationship between Ardmore and Swedish window supplier Leiab meant that the windows, although still aluminium on the outside and timber internally, cost 20% less.

The library is the ‘interesting’ bit from Ardmore’s perspective. Below the flats at ground level, it is being extended to form the Lifelong Learning Centre for various council departments and adult learning resources as well as books. Way back when, the intention had been to keep the library open while the build went on. That hasn’t happened and it would have been cheaper to knock the whole lot down and start again. Instead, the job has become a combined refurb/extension and new-build.

But the real challenge on the library is programme, says Gallagher: “Part of the deal was that Redrow had to deliver the library as close to the original date as possible,” he explains. No mean feat when you consider that months had passed between Wates leaving and Ardmore arriving, and that many of the design changes concerned the M&E and fit-out of the library.

To get the library sorted out, Ardmore has been working seven days a week for the past few months with the handover date set for 30 March. Original press releases talked about the centre opening early in 2006.

There was plenty still to do when Ardmore arrived on site on 14 February last year. The existing library had been stripped back to its concrete frame and piling and mini piling had gone in to double its size. Columns had been punched through the floor and brought up as far as the underside of a transfer slab.

Buro Happold engineer Oliver Blythe spent a fevered period checking calculations to make sure that the piles and structure could bear the increased load due to the extra flats. Blythe describes the transfer structure as “two table tops, each of which holds two blocks of flats, each with 10 to 12 legs”. The positions of the “legs”, or columns, were carefully chosen so they did not affect the structural integrity of the old library building but were as close as possible to existing columns for space reasons.

The columns drop onto bridge beams, built between piles either side of the foundations. “We had to go back and reassess and reanalyse the structure, taking into account the increased loading from the denser scheme above,” says Blythe.

Fortunately only two columns had to be broken out and reinforced. Buro Happold increased some of the reinforcement in the “table tops” but these had yet to be built at the time.

Ardmore’s secret weapon is its workforce. It employs 250 of the 300 men on site. Only the cladding, asphalt roofing, render and lifts have been contracted out. Concrete gangs, labourers carpenters and decorators are all in-house, although paid as far as possible on piecework.

“It’s a lot better from our point of view.

You are not dealing with a third party so you have direct control of work,” says Gallagher.

“It does mean you need more supervision.

One of the things I demanded is that I was dealing with someone who could make decisions

John Ireland, Redrow

But the theory is that we are not losing profit to sub-contractors.”

No more hold-ups

Ardmore even does the residential M&E design and installation in-house. “In the past we have always been held up by plumbers and electricians,” says Gallagher, who has been with Ardmore for 15 years. “So two years ago we started our own M&E business.”

By mid-February Ardmore should be striking scaffolding to the North block, and a staggered handover, floor by floor, will begin from May and run until March 2008. Not bad considering the original plan was to complete the scheme by the end of 2007.

So all’s well that ends well. But what lessons can be learned from the scheme’s problems? Redrow’s Ireland suggests that Urban Catalyst simply wasn’t hard enough with the council.

Redrow’s approach was blunt, although it has to be said that with the scheme foundering it was in a pretty strong position to negotiate. “We are always clear and upfront,” says Ireland. “We talk to the local authority: we cannot achieve this, you cannot have it because of this. So often people are afraid to stand up and say ‘no, we can’t because…’ You have to be able to envisage very quickly what the other side wants.

“One of the things I did demand is that I was dealing with someone who could make decisions. That really was key,” adds Ireland.

In his defence Urban Catalyst founder Ken Dytor points out that this was a ground-breaking public-private agreement: “Everybody was finding their way. If all the parties were around the table today it would be a lot simpler and a lot faster.”

When it comes to changes, Ireland has instigated a system where they all have to come via one person in the local authority to him. This has not stopped the flow, but now at least there’s some control.

Lack of experience may also have contributed to Urban Catalyst’s problems. “They did not have the construction influence in the market to get the best construction price for the scheme,” says Redrow’s senior regeneration manager Peter Green, who keeps an iron grip on the project’s costs via a series of management systems. “We have got the expertise,” he adds.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation,” offers Ireland. “When you are negotiating you have to know how much it’s going to cost.”

For Redrow, the cost was too much, particularly when it came to the Lifelong Learning Centre, which received a strong dose of value engineering. Ireland says: “There are big changes in the way we are procuring and building the library. We said: ‘Why do you want six lifts? You only need two and why do they have to be 12-man lifts?’”

When completed, Barking Central will be commutersville. The council’s insistence on no parking spaces makes the flats more difficult to sell, so Redrow has sold the whole lot to City & Docklands Property Group which will let some and sell some. But this investment does allow Redrow to plough on with phase two, which is in for planning and involves five new buildings and includes commercial and retail space.

A block full of one-bedroom flats, the bulk of which will probably be rented by commuters, doesn’t seem to have much to do with creating the ‘sustainable communities’ which the Thames Gateway is supposed to be about.

But Ireland argues that the scheme is about raising expectations, because as phase two takes shape, so too will some vast civic spaces, which include a granite-paved town square and an arboretum.

“It’s about not getting politically silly,” says Ireland. “The first phase is about civic community space. Too often people don’t get the place right. Social cohesion is going to be a major issue in this country. In the second phase we will be putting in family homes.”

Regeneration is a long old game. For Redrow, Barking Central is a first step into the Thames Gateway. This scheme was one of the first to go through the UDC for planning (see box).

“We can prove the model works, how we go about negotiating,” says Ireland. “Everyone can do it but they don’t do it quick enough. You can make a development happen quickly if that’s want you want to do.”

For more on the Thames Gateway visit:

www.thamesgatewayforum.com

www.thamesgateway.gov.uk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Gateway