Digital Technology Will Change the Culture of the Construction Industry

/ JCT Povey Lecture

  A vision for the future of the construction industry and society as a whole was shared by Professor Alan Penn in delivering the JCT Povey Lecture 2019, entitled “Our digital future: space and place in a digital world”. Professor Alan Penn delivered his lecture to JCT delegates at 18 Smith Square, London on Wednesday, 20 November 2019. Professor Alan Penn showed that throughout human history, developments in technology have impacted the way in which we have developed our built environment, and how we have…

Construction Contract Mistakes: That Wasn’t Quite What We Meant

/ Contractual Issues

Blog Author: Victoria Peckett – CMS When rectifying contracts to fix drafting mistakes, what happens if the parties disagree on what was meant? Construction contracts are often so voluminous that it can be easy for mistakes to creep in when putting them together and for the executed contract not to reflect what the parties think they have agreed in all respects. Often these mistakes can be sorted out by agreement — either the parties will amend the erroneous parts in manuscript before dating them, or…

Working With BIM and JCT Contracts

/ BIM

Blog Author: Mark Pantry – Fenwick Elliott In May 2019, JCT introduced a new Practice Note, BIM and JCT Contracts. JCT says that the aim of the Practice is to further the understanding of BIM related legal and contractual issues and suggest ways of approaching such issues in a collaborative and constructive way. Mark Pantry explores the extent to which JCT have achieved this. The construction industry continues to make progress with the implementation of digital technology in construction projects. It is, however, widely accepted…

Chair’s Letter: Towards Value-based Procurement

/ Chairman's Blog

Blog Author: Richard Saxon, CBE I return to this topic again as it advances continuously. Government struggles with its procurement policy as forces pull in opposite directions. On the one hand, established practice is to seek lowest capital cost for design and construction in order to spread available resources over the most constituencies possible. On the other hand, there is growing awareness that processes seeking lowest first cost tend to produce poor value. Value is not just price, but a more complex concept embodying benefits…

Alliancing With Excellence

/ Contractual Issues, JCT 2016 Edition

Blog Author: Peter Hibberd Those involved with construction frequently berate themselves and others for its poor performance; often rightly. However, there remains a failure to recognise fully what can be done to improve. The tendency to concentrate simply on improving efficiency is not enough because one can be efficient without creating value. What must be improved is quality and productivity as these will create project life value for the client and a better return to the participants without increasing costs disproportionately. Those two objectives are…

Wesley House, Cambridge

/ Case Studies

Wesley House is a theological college located in Jesus Lane, Cambridge. Originally independent of Cambridge University, it was sold to Jesus College in 2014. With both a reduction in size and an adjustment of focus to post-graduate study, a redevelopment of the site was required to optimize the space and provide improved facilities. With construction starting in 2015, the new building was opened in April last year. A JCT Intermediate Building Contract was the form of choice. The original Wesley House was constructed in the…

New JCT BIM Guidance and Other BIM Developments

/ BIM

Blog Authors: Andrew Croft and Kevin Henderson – Beale & Co, and May Winfield – Buro Happold The 2011 UK Government Construction Strategy included a mandate to use BIM Level 2 on all centrally procured government projects by April 2016. Part of the strategy to encourage the adoption of BIM was the publication of standard documents, including the Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) 1192 series of standards, in particular PAS 1192-2, the “specification for information management for the capital/delivery phase of construction projects using building information…

Practical Completion

/ Contractual Issues

Blog Author: Peter Hibberd The recent Court of Appeal case of Mears v Costplan Services (2019) EWCA Civ 502 is seen by some to once again raise, amongst other things, the issue of whether contracts should precisely define what constitutes practical completion. Practical completion is sometimes contrasted to substantial completion and even practically complete. However, none of these terms requires work to be completed in all respects before it is certified or is deemed to occur. As stated in Mears, ‘If there is a patent…

Chair’s Letter: Is a Sustainable Built Environment Possible?

/ Chairman's Blog

Blog Author: Richard Saxon, CBE The Extinction Rebellion movement has certainly rekindled the awareness of everyone that climate change is real, and that drastic action is essential. But what can we in the built environment do differently other than the slow, incremental changes that are in train? Recent books point the way and give rise to some optimism. There are two, related areas of change to consider. Firstly, energy use in both making and running buildings must become zero-carbon. Secondly, the linear approach to building…

Build and Create Your JCT Contracts Online with JCT Construct

/ JCT Product Updates

  JCT Construct is a revolutionary new online contract drafting tool to enable you to draft, amend, and edit your contracts with confidence and ease. JCT’s new digital service, JCT Construct, is a contract drafting system with advanced editing features, enabling users to create and amend their JCT contracts in a secure, flexible, and easy to use online environment. The system enables the editing of the JCT contract text itself, so that users can add their own amendments, clauses, or other customised text. This works…