In today’s news, we will look into the construction business in the United Kingdom uses collaborative contracting. During this time, Severn Trent has begun construction on the first operational ozone wastewater site in the United Kingdom, which is located in South Warwickshire. Moreover, Mediaworks has formed a partnership with a major construction materials supplier in the United Kingdom. In addition, Baroness Thornhill asserts that the United Kingdom is “not capable” of meeting housing targets because of the issue in the construction sector.
Contractor Collaboration in UK Construction
Original Source: Collaborative contracting in the UK construction industry
Mark Macaulay applauds the UK construction industry’s move from conflict to cooperation. Before being considered collaborative, several standard form contracts need work.
Collective contracting in the UK construction industry marks a change from adversarial to integrated and cooperative interactions. This transformation has been encouraged by publications, contractual frameworks, and industry initiatives that identify the benefits of collaboration in building project success.
Rethinking Construction, the 1998 Egan Report, was one of the first and most impactful change reports. Sir John Egan’s assessment on the UK construction industry’s inefficiencies advocated customer happiness, integrated processes, quality, and people. This report’s plea for collaboration paved the way for future contractual procedures.
Early supplier engagement, long-term relationships, and collaborative approaches improve public construction project performance and sustainability, according to the December 2020 Government Construction Playbook, which outlines key policies and guidance for procurement and delivery. The Playbook promotes commercial models with shared risk and reward structures that encourage collaboration, innovation, and performance.
Standard form contract collaboration evolution
The New Engineering Contract (NEC), first published in 1993 and now in its fourth version, pioneered collaborative contracting in the UK. An “early warning” system and risk register in the NEC contract suite encourage transparency and collective risk management to help parties communicate and address difficulties.
NEC contracts also provide key performance indicators and multi-party collaboration to promote collaboration across the supply chain. The NEC’s collaborative spirit was used in the London 2012 Olympics and Crossrail.
The Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) contracts have been slower to adopt collaborative contracting, with some critics arguing that its lump-sum, design-bid-build foundations make them prone to conflict. The JCT Constructing Excellence Contract’s partnering charter promotes collaboration. It has also required project team members to work together in good faith, trust, and respect in its recent contracts.
However, JCT contracts are not yet truly collaborative, so parties using them must add bespoke clauses or agreements to create the necessary collaborative framework.
Individual partnership agreements include the Framework Alliance Contract (FAC-1). Standard form FAC-1 permits multi-party alliances and was introduced in 2016. It’s designed for diverse procurement and contractual setups. An umbrella agreement can merge numerous contracts and participants in a project or series of projects.
It allows parties to collaborate on goals, manage risks and opportunities, and set up early warning and problem-solving systems. FAC-1 can be used with other contracts to form a multi-party alliance that aligns contract goals and encourages project collaboration.
Integrating collaborative teams
For Egan’s worries, the construction industry has developed “deeper,” more integrated types of collaborative contracting than industry standard forms. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) promotes stakeholder engagement and integration from the start.
It aligns team members’ interests, objectives, and practices to maximise project results, owner value, waste reduction, and efficiency throughout all project phases. IPD is still evolving as a delivery method, but it typically involves a multi-party contract, shared risks and rewards based on project outcomes, joint project control and decision-making, a focus on efficiency and innovation, early key participant involvement, and collaborative tools and Building Information Modelling.
Collective contracting called alliancing has been utilised to undertake complicated, large-scale infrastructure projects in the UK where disputes are likely and integrated teamwork is essential. The client (project owner), contractors, designers, and key suppliers form an alliance. All partners agree to work as one integrated team, aligning interests and sharing project risks and gains. Continuous improvement and innovation processes are commonly included in alliance agreements to improve project value and outcomes.
The Northern Line Extension (extending the London Underground’s Northern Line to Battersea) and the Anglian Water @One Alliance (to design and build water and wastewater infrastructure) demonstrate how alliancing can improve efficiency, innovation, and project outcomes.
Project 13, another UK integrated collaborative approach, is growing. This industry-developed delivery model improves infrastructure delivery and management. Project 13 creates an organisation with an integrated team (owner, investors, integrator, advisers, and suppliers) to deliver the project instead of using standard contracts. The model encourages a flat, networked structure that supports knowledge sharing and collective problem-solving across the enterprise. Decisions are made with a long-term value perspective, considering the infrastructure’s whole life cost and benefits rather than just the initial capital cost.
Project 13 emphasises teamwork, shared goals, and long-term value, but it is not alliancing.
However, Project 13 represents a cultural and operational change in project conception and delivery.
Conclusions
The UK construction industry has adopted collaborative contracting to accomplish projects more efficiently, cheaply, and well.
Several UK projects have employed collaborative contracting successfully. The NEC contract helped the Olympic Delivery Authority and its supplier chain deliver the London 2012 Olympics on time and within budget. Crossrail, one of Europe’s greatest infrastructure projects, uses NEC contracts to manage its complex stakeholders and job packages.
These examples proved the value of collaborative contracting and urged the industry to adopt it. Collaboration demands a culture shift and a willingness to try new methods. This strategy demands confidence, open communication, and a shared goal, not just contract form changes.
In South Warwickshire, Severn Trent builds the UK’s First Ozone Wastewater Plant
Original Source: Severn Trent starts construction of UK’s first operational ozone wastewater site in South Warwickshire
UK’s first “pioneering” operational ozone wastewater treatment plant is being built by Severn Trent.
The corporation is investing £78 million to “help boost river health and move stretches of river to bathing quality standard” with the technology.
At the Frankton wastewater treatment complex in Warwickshire, enormous gas cylinders containing ozone (O3) gas have been placed, a first in the UK.
Severn Trent claimed the nearby river will receive “highest standard” cleaned water.
A typical drinking water disinfectant kills algae, iron, manganese, micro-pollutants, and medicines.
The company’s Green Recovery program includes building two further plants in Ludlow and Warwickshire by March 2025.?
Severn Trent project manager Wilfred Denga said: “Our ambitious spills program, massive investments, and innovative technologies lead river health.
“Using ozone to treat wastewater could revolutionise wastewater treatment, and this is an exciting step in our work.
In Warwickshire and Ludlow, we’ll test the technology for the first time.
“That’s exceeding expectations and helping rivers and the environment. Ozone treatment cleans the water even further, helping us construct bathing rivers.”
Severn Trent’s £78 million investment in river bathing quality has included massive storage tanks, separate waste networks, and innovative wastewater treatment.
It will improve bathing quality on the River Leam and River Teme by 2025, benefiting the River Avon.
Mediaworks Collaborates with UK Building Materials Giant
Original Source: Mediaworks partners with UK construction materials supply giant
The UK’s leading building materials supplier, Travis Perkins, is partnering with Mediaworks.
A comprehensive SEO strategy to increase organic traffic, ecommerce revenue, and trade account customer acquisition for Travis Perkins has been developed and implemented by Newcastle-HQ’d Mediaworks, which has offices in Leeds, Manchester, and Edinburgh.
Travis Perkins’ trade-focused audience will grow through the agreement, cementing its market leadership. Mediaworks began resolving crucial technical SEO issues to improve Travis Perkins’ website for the newest search engine algorithm upgrades.
Mediaworks has developed a strategy that examines the objective behind every search, ensuring Travis Perkins is visible at every stage of the purchase journey and cementing its market authority.
This foundational work is crucial for continued optimisation efforts and includes the formulation of a long-term strategy for faceted navigation, which will greatly improve keyword targeting breadth,» said Jack Minott, organic search director at Mediaworks.
Mediaworks uses a digital PR (DPR) approach to boost brand awareness and engagement. Focussing on sports, travel, and lifestyle interests helps boost brand awareness among trade buyers.
Mediaworks is working with Travis Perkins to build a seamless omnichannel experience to compete with a changing market place. This will boost brand visibility and ensure on-site content earns search engine rankings and conversions.
To better serve trade customers, Travis Perkins is constantly improving its internet presence. We can refine our SEO approach and improve our digital experiences using Mediaworks’ knowledge. Carine Jessamine, Travis Perkins’ marketing and digital director, said this collaboration will improve our ability to address consumers’ changing demands and provide them with the relevant products and information swiftly.
SEO is crucial to the partnership’s goal of commercial value. Mediaworks’ goal is to boost Travis Perkins’ e-commerce sales and customer satisfaction.
Mediaworks CEO Brett Jacobson said: “Mediaworks was built on SEO expertise and we are delighted to welcome Travis Perkins into our client base…. We can assist Travis Perkins reach its ambitious goals by focussing on its trade audience’s needs and creating a targeted content and keyword strategy.
Matt Aitken, Travis Perkins’ head of digital, said: “We’ve been looking for a partner who can boost our organic traffic and understand our industry and trade audience. We’re excited to see how Mediaworks’ approach matches our goals.”
Construction Worker Shortage Prevents UK from Meeting Housing Ambitions, Baroness Thornhill Warns
Original Source: UK ‘not capable’ of hitting housing targets due to construction workforce crisis, Baroness Thornhill says
Baroness Dorothy Thornhill warned the Liberal Democrat conference on Sunday that a construction workforce shortage makes the UK “not capable” of building 300,000 homes per year.
In a discussion on the housing crisis and building hurdles, the former Liberal Democrat mayor of Watford remarked, ‘we have a construction worker crisis, shedloads are going to be retiring in the near future, and new people are not coming forward’.
When asked why governments have struggled to reach housing targets, she added, “There isn’t a simple answer”.
“It’s a very complex and complicated issue,” she added, citing the planning system, nutrient neutrality, land use, land value, green belt utilisation, density, build-out rates, and nimbyism.
“The bottom line is there is no quick fix,” she stated. We can’t leave it to the giant house builders; we need to get SMEs, councils, housing associations, and self-build back in the game.
“All those things and how we build are crucial. We must examine modern construction processes and their barriers, Baroness Thornhill stated.
Her belief was that the UK could not produce 300,000 homes a year and was “nowhere near” the Liberal Democrats’ 380,000-home ambition.
Baroness Thornhill said, “Where is the workforce strategy? Is Labour’s workforce strategy where? Our workforce strategy—where?
Without qualified personnel, efforts to improve other aspects become insignificant.
She added there should be additional planning officers, site workers, and “everyone in between”.
Inside Housing promotes social housing as a place to work and helps people discover and build employment at housing associations and councils through its Housing Hires campaign.
Peter Taylor, the mayor of Watford, said Labour’s investment of 300 planning officers was a “good start” but did not cover every municipality at a previous session on building. “We need more planners,” he remarked.
The discussion also addressed housing supply and investment issues.
The newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, Sarah Gibson, told delegates that her inbox was full of emails from homeless people and social tenants “who are really suffering from a lack of investment and poor funding of housing associations”.
Ms. Gibson said: “The other part of my inbox, which is hugely full of course, is those residents of social housing who are really suffering from a lack of investment and poor funding of housing associations, [which] are therefore unable to meet their targets for renewing housing, communicate with their residents on a regular enough basis, and deal with some of the maintenance issues, some of which are quite, quite complicated
She also slammed a “1950s” and “out-of-date” planning system for preventing new housing construction.
Many of us in this room believe that more housing needs to be created, but we’ve been talking about this for 15 years and have housing targets for a long time, and nobody ever meets their targets.
“This is for a good reason. Currently, the local authority has the housing objective, thus they have the stick.
„But they are not in a position to carry it out, because our volume house builders have the authority and ability to build those houses once they have planning permission.”
We were “kidding ourselves” when there was no planning reform that took some power “out of the hands” of house builders and put it “back into our democratically elected local authorities”. Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, is deceiving herself if she thinks she can meet housing targets.
Early in the event, Peabody managing director for south London Wells Chomutare told delegates the landlord was “ready and able” to create more houses, but associations required more funding.
The “challenging” economy put providers under “stress” and residents under financial strain, he said.
We can deliver the needed dwellings, he claimed. But that costs, and rising loan rates have made it tough.
“Housing associations have supported home delivery. We’ve built 3,700 social homes in the last two years, and each takes 60 years to pay for itself. So you see the issue.
“How do you close that gap? That gap between when that house pays for itself must be filled.
“We need more financial capacity for development.”
At its Brighton conference, the Liberal Democrats’ leader was questioned about his party’s nimbyism after he defended “community-led” development.
Summary of today’s construction news
Overall, we discussed the advent of collective contracting in the United Kingdom’s construction sector heralds a shift from competitive to cooperative dynamics. Publications, contractual frameworks, and industry initiatives have all contributed to this shift by highlighting the importance of teamwork to the completion of construction projects. The “pioneering” ozone wastewater treatment plant in the United Kingdom is now under construction by Severn Trent. In order to “help boost river health and move stretches of river to bathing quality standard” using the technology, the business is investing £78 million. On top of that, Mediaworks has partnered with Travis Perkins, the preeminent UK supplier of construction products. The Leeds, Manchester, and Edinburgh-based SEO firm Newcastle-HQ’d Mediaworks has devised and executed a full-scale plan to boost Travis Perkins’ organic traffic, ecommerce income, and trade account client acquisition. Also, the UK is “not capable” of constructing 300,000 homes annually due to a lack of construction workers, as Baroness Dorothy Thornhill cautioned at Sunday’s Liberal Democrat convention.
