To develop an understanding of the nature of development projects and to examine the legal responsibilities of the various parties involved in the design and construction process.
Description - This exercise should be completed if you have been deferred/referred in the report.
Three years ago a training college (the Client) decided to press ahead with a project to substantially expand its accommodation because of increasing student numbers. It needed to provide more classroom space, a new sports centre, a new learning resource centre and a dedicated arts teaching block which would include a studio theatre, fashion and graphic design studios and a music suite.
The sports centre would be accommodated in a new building but the rest of the facilities would be housed in a neighbouring property which it owned and would need to be extended vertically by the construction of 2 additional floors. This extension would result in a reduction of the light reaching the neighbouring estate of low rise blocks of flats. In addition, the necessity to underpin the foundations of the existing building would involve the college in Party Wall procedures with the adjacent block of flats (attached to the college building).
As the training college's budget was limited to £3.5m it decided that the sports centre would form a separate phase of the project (Phase two) and would go ahead once the college had the necessary funding.
The training college had never carried out a building project of any magnitude before and therefore could be described as an inexpert client. Following a selection process where it was advised by an independent firm of consultants, it identified the team led by a project management consultancy firm who in turn hired the architect, structural and mechanical engineers and quantity surveyors. The intention was that a design and build procurement route would be used: the design team would prepare the scheme proposals and the appointed contractor would then carry out the detail design and construction.
Phase one of the project has been a major headache for the client as it encountered, among others, the following problems:
1. Budget. Although the client was clear about its budget and repeatedly expressed concern during the design development about whether the cost was exceeding the budget, the cost plan for the Phase one scheme suggested a construction cost of £4.9m. The client had repeatedly asked for cost information during the project but had not been given any. The quantity surveyor justified this by saying that they never had enough information because things kept changing.
2. Asbestos. Asbestos was found during the demolition of part of the existing block and, as this had not been previously identified in the Asbestos Register, the project suffered additional delays and consequential costs.
3. Client's priorities. The Client was also exasperated because it had been specific from the early days of the project in its request that some aspects of the design were priorities, but these seemed to have been ignored by the designers. It also found that when it was given information and drawings to comment on, it did so, and this necessitated a lot of time consuming intemal meetings. However, when these comments were presented at the next client / project team meeting it often became apparent that the plans and design had changed, and so the comments were largely irrelevant.
4. Brief. The architect complained that it was very difficult to pin down what the exact brief was and had repeatedly tried to set up meetings with the Client via the project manager but was unable to do so. The project manager had said that they would obtain the information needed.
5. Advisors. The client eventually appointed a new set of external advisors to help rescue the situation. The first thing that emerged was that the contract between the project management consultancy firm and the Client had not been finally agreed. Although the Client thought that it had agreed the terms, the consultant had not signed the contract and was now alleging that some aspects had not been agreed. It also turned out that the sub-consultancy agreements between the project manager and the rest of the team had not been signed either, and that the fee that project manager had tendered to the Client for the whole job was in fact the same amount as the architect had agreed for their part of the job.
6. Detailed design. Once the contractor had been appointed, they used their own design team to complete the design having agreed a number of cuts with the Client. However, the quality of the final product was substantially below the quality that the Client thought that it was going to get and indeed had insisted on with the original design team.
7. Health & Safety. Additional problems were created when tools stored by the contractor in the scaffolding to the building fell onto the balconies of the adjacent block of flats, causing a serious injury to one of the occupants.
Now that a much reduced phase one has been completed, the Client is very nervous about proceeding with Phase two. Please comment on each of the problems encountered and advise the Client on how to proceed.
Note: U.K property laws
Word Limit 3000 (tables and illustrations do not count)