Top marks for Williams...

Jeremy Williams of Taylor Woodrow was crowned Construction Manager of the Year 2006 at a glittering awards ceremony at London’s Grosvenor Hotel for his role as project director on the National Assembly for Wales.

So congratulations to Jeremy and all the finalists in this hard-fought award. You can read about the winners from page 14 in this issue. We don’t have space to tell the stories of all those who have been highly commended but you can read about their heroics at www.cmya.co.uk.

... but schools struggle to make the grade

Can you think of anything more important than building a school?

If you turn out a turkey, the repercussions are more than a disgruntled client and a tarnished reputation. You could be damaging the future of thousands of schoolchildren, and if you want to be really dramatic about it the future of the nation.

That’s why it seems ridiculous that the consortia bidding to build secondary schools under the government’s £45bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, are expected to design schools with just four three-hour meetings with teachers, governors and the local authority. The tight budgets involved make this a challenging enough prospect without expecting designers to extract all the information they need in such a small amount of time. (See our feature on designing BSF, page 34).

It is often the contractors who cop the criticism when PFI projects turn out bland buildings. And it is true that firms we once knew as contractors are having to build up new skills and learn a new mentality to play the key role of co-ordinating design. But even with these skills and the right attitude, these school designs will be rushed.

Then there’s the issue of resources. Typically three consortia are competing, each struggling to produce bid-winning designs. It’s wasteful. And in a few years when all the best schools architects are tied into partnerships, who will design the later waves of our schools for the future?

The idea behind BSF is to be applauded: creating learning environments which improve the education our children receive. But in terms of the procurement route, the verdict is: could do better.