Chair’s Letter: Better Information Management

/ Chairman's Blog

Blog Author: Richard Saxon, CBE Readers may be familiar with my interest in Building Information Modelling or BIM. Since the turn of the century I have been involved with the concept, helping to spur the government to make it their policy to mandate its use. In 2012 I was commissioned to produce a report for what is now BEIS on ‘BIM for Growth’, the potential effect on economic growth of the uptake of BIM in the UK. I became ‘UK BIM Ambassador for Growth’ in…

JCT Povey Lecture 2020 – Webinar Reaches Widest JCT Audience to Date

/ JCT Povey Lecture

“Safety in Numbers: Resilience and Certainty Through Data” was the topic of the 2020 JCT Povey Lecture, presented by Dr Damien Buie, group technical director at Laing O’Rourke, on Wednesday, 18 November 2020. The JCT Povey Lecture was broadcast live as a webinar for the first time, in light of the restrictions in place due to Covid-19. Attendees were able to register in advance via the event website and the interactive online interface enabled questions and comments to be submitted in real time. With over…

Assessing the Draft Building Safety Bill

/ Legislation

Blog Author: Michael O’Connor – Partner, Charles Russell Speechlys LLP Taken with various accompanying measures relating to building safety – such as the Fire Safety Bill currently passing through Parliament, various changes to the Building Regulations and the establishment of funds for the replacement of both ACM and Non-ACM cladding and the cost of waking watches, worth £1.6bn – there is no doubt that the measures comprise the most wide-ranging reforms in building safety for 40 years. Building Safety Regulator Initially confirmed by the Government…

JCT Training Online – Flexible Learning Options for JCT Contract Users

/ Education, Skills and Students

JCT has developed a new package of online training to sit alongside its traditional, face-to-face courses. The programme aims to provide more flexibility for contract users following the restrictions and wider working implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. The scheme started on the 26 November 2020, where two courses, “JCT Design and Build Contract 2016” and “JCT Contracts 2016: The Legal Perspective”, were delivered as live, interactive webinars. The new digital JCT Training comes from the same expert trainers as the physical courses – all either…

Construction’s New Playbook

/ General, Legislation

Blog Author: Richard Saxon CBE – JCT Chair You may not know that I have been a long-time fan of American Football. The game is sometimes called ‘violent chess’ as it’s based on pre-planned ‘plays’ by one side’s offence team and the other’s defence team. The plays are radioed into the quarterback, the leader of the offence, by a coach on the side-line and the whole team must remember the moves implied by the coded name of the play, then execute it flawlessly. All the…

Brixton Windmill Community Centre

/ Case Studies

London’s last surviving working mill gets an upgrade with a new community centre, built on a JCT Intermediate Contract. The new community centre at Brixton Windmill has been a project many years in the planning for the Friends of Windmill Hill (FoWH), which was completed last year with funding from Lambeth Council. The charity is responsible for the preservation and maintenance of the Grade II listed windmill, the last remaining working flour mill in London. The brief for the new community centre was to provide…

JCT Interviews…Victoria Peckett

/ Interviews

Partner, head of construction, CMS-CMNO Chair, JCT Drafting Sub-Committee In a special edition of ‘JCT Interviews…’, we talk once again with Victoria Peckett, chair of the JCT Drafting Sub-Committee (DSC), to update us on JCT’s current work and what we can expect from the next edition of the JCT contract suite. JCT: Victoria, thanks for joining us again. You are about to embark on your next term as chair of the DSC. What do you find enjoyable/rewarding about the role, what are the biggest challenges?…

Canopy House, Nairobi

/ Case Studies

This residential property, built for a British-raised Kenyan working for the UN, combines a mixture of renovation, extension, and smart sourcing of labour and materials to provide luxury on a budget. Key to saving costs was the use of a JCT Minor Works Building Contract with contractor’s design. The large site for this property, set in well-healed Nairobi suburb, already contained a bungalow which presented two initial challenges. Firstly, budget precluded the option to completely remove the structure and secondly, the undesirable aspect of the…

Preparing for public procurement post-Brexit

/ Contractual Issues, Latest News, Public Sector

Blog Authors: Graeme Young, Partner and Shona Murphy, Associate – CMS UK The UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Under the terms of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, the current EU public procurement rules have continued in force in the UK during an 11 month transition period. That transition period expires on 31 December 2020. While the UK may still be able to agree a limited form of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU by the end of this year, it seems…

JCT Launches New Group for Young Professionals

/ Specialist Interest Groups

JCT has launched the JCT Young Professionals Group (YPG), a new cross-industry networking initiative for construction professionals. The aim of the YPG is to provide a focus group for construction professionals within the first ten years of their career, those that are “young in the industry” regardless of age, and students, who are interested in elevating their professional profile, expanding their industry network and connecting with peers, and giving back to the industry through fostering a long-term engagement with JCT. In its role as a…