黑洞社区

One of the things about living and working in a capital city is that it is drenched in history, culture and new ideas. If you spend your professional life in construction and in a major urban centre, that means seeing both futuristic design and technology coming to life but also working around outstanding examples of the output of our forebears 鈥� the investors, developers, contractors and project teams who did so much to shape our environment.

HG Wells鈥� The Time Machine is primarily set in London and one of the enduring pleasures of the story is a play on the idiom that 鈥渢ime flies鈥�. The main character loses consciousness and eventually reaches the year 802,701. The story reflects our fascination with the passage of time, especially its fleeting nature, speeding by before we can properly take stock.

I have now spent over 10 years working in London for Morgan Sindall Construction. It is astonishing to me how quickly that time has passed, but I also know that the industry has changed significantly for the better in that period.

Contrary to the view that construction is resistant to change, I see modernisation everywhere

I think we all understand the achievements, which are manifold and impressive. Contrary to the view that construction is resistant to change, I see modernisation everywhere.

Sustainability now drives design, with net-zero goals reshaping materials and waste strategies. Collaborative working practices and performance-based outcomes have largely replaced adversarial approaches.

Technology in the form of building information modelling and digital twins is now commonplace. Gender diversity and working practices have also made a leap forward.

The way people interact in our industry has been transformed, not so much by formal codes of conduct but just by the vibe; nobody would last more than a few days at a tier one contractor 鈥� and certainly not this one 鈥� if they failed to understand the right behaviours and attitudes demanded by and of the people who work in our industry.

So, a good decade 鈥� but of course the industry needs to keep evolving if we want to maintain the progress over the next 10 years. The element where I would like to see the dial move concerns risk transfer.

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At present there is a kind of pendulum that swings depending on the scheme, the project team bringing it forward and perceived market conditions. As a business, we successfully deliver social infrastructure in the form of leisure, education, healthcare facilities and affordable homes at scale. We also bring significant value to burgeoning parts of the London market, especially high specification buildings for life science and technology.

Given the sheer size and complexity of these schemes, there is always going to be close attention to how the risk is managed and transferred.

As a business we are more than happy to accept our share of risk. We have the capability and covenant to make those decisions. I am also clear that the Morgan Sindall model of empowerment and decentralisation is one of the clear key differentiators for us and our clients.

We still see projects coming forward which are detached from the timeframes everyone in the industry should know and understand

Yet it is still amazing to see how far behind the curve some other advisors and participants in the market can be when it comes to apportioning risk and the time to manage it in a equitable way. We still see projects coming forward which are detached from the timeframes everyone in the industry should know and understand.

It is not unusual to see frankly craven suggestions that the main contractor should be able deliver aspects of the pre-work in timeframes where it is clear that what is being proposed is implausible and unlikely to lead to any reliable outcome.

So the industry needs to stop leaning into flawed procurement routes and timeframes; to hold the line when it comes to having more realistic discussions with customers.

We might, for example, see a project that is halfway designed, where we still need to finish the design, get it priced and have all the risk assessed. It might be a process that all concerned know will take 16 weeks or longer 鈥� but we are asked to handle it in a few.

In some ways these behaviours reflect the switch in focus to the PCSA (pre-construction) period. Everyone knows roughly how long construction takes. That鈥檚 all fairly consistent now 鈥� it鈥檚 unusual that you are competing on how long the construction period is. We also all know what will happen if those periods are squeezed too much.

And so the variable in construction projects has become the PCSA period. We need to maintain the realism around how long it takes to complete designs of good quality, manage risk to an acceptable level and mobilise a dedicated supply chain. This has become a pinch-point where important aspects of managing complex developments can all too easily get compromised.

We are experienced and know how to respond when these circumstances present themselves. But, as an industry, we need more acknowledgment and transparency around where the risk sits and how it is transferred and how long this takes, with some talented people to lead it and appreciate the true value of these investments.

It is a conversation that I hope we will have progressed before I sit down and collect my thoughts again in 2035.

Richard Dobson is area director London at Morgan Sindall Construction