CIOB News

Chris Blythe Action not words will

solve housing crisis Henry Ford once said

“you cannot build a

Paul Nash: let's focus on clients New CIOB vice-president says construction cannot be 'an end in itself'

Paul Nash FCIOB, the Institute's new vice president and a director of Turner & Townsend, has promised to bring a “client's perspective” to the CIOB, acknowledging their need for new approaches and new thinking in a fast-changing world. He draws this world view from his role as a T&T director in the London offi ce specialising in the commercial developer and corporate occupier sector, devising new ways of packaging the fi rm's services to offer clients the outcomes they need. “I come to the role with a slightly different perspective, I spend a lot of time with clients, providing independent professional advice,” Nash told CM. “So I'm passionate about the way the industry engages with clients, and how well we as an industry understand what clients want. As the saying goes, we might be selling drill bits, when they want holes. "There's a tendency to see what we do as an end

in itself, rather than a means to an end. It's about engaging with clients, and feeding that back into the education process — at the moment there's quite a technical emphasis.” He also believes the industry needs to respond to the underlying shifts taking place in our globalised economy, where fi nance, products and personnel are increasingly drawn from outside the UK. “The danger is that we don't recognise that the

world has changed and the way people work and the nature of employment has changed. We've got a number of traditional solutions that will need to be adapted because the world is changing. Your materials may come from overseas, your project manager may well come from India, and your project

Paul Nash FCIOB says the industry should do more to put the client centre stage

fi nance may come from China." Nash's 32-year career began when he joined contractor Fairclough at 18 as an indentured management trainee. While working for contractor HBG, which was later acquired by BAM, he was then encouraged to take a masters degree in project management. Already a CIOB Trustee, Nash was

inaugurated as vice-president at the Annual General Meeting in Qatar. He will serve as president from June 2016, following the

2015/16 presidency of Chris Chivers FCIOB. From his client-focused view, Nash also believes

that the industry needs to provide more reliable data and evidence on the benefi ts of BIM, particularly as it's arriving in an industry where cultures and practices were established decades ago. "BIM has the potential to completely change the

way we deliver projects and work as teams, but where's the evidence? I think it's right to ask these questions, and say to the industry, 'we can't assume the benefi ts of BIM are self-evident'. If I'm sitting with a client who's got to invest quite a lot, then at the moment we don't have very much data or evidence to call on." Nash also backed the CIOB's current initiative

to engage more closely with MPs and Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (pages 4-5). “It's important that we become more engaged, and

have more of a voice at government level to inform that policy making. Sometimes, I think we have more success at that overseas, for instance in Qatar. We need to become the body that government wants to engage with on policy issues.”

Finalists set for CMYA showdown

Ninety-fi ve individuals who masterminded the construction of some of the most iconic buildings of recent years will compete for the prestigious gold and silver Construction Manager of the Year Awards at this year’s grand fi nal in October. All the fi nalists were fi rst nominated by their

clients, then interviewed at their sites by a panel of expert judges. Willmott Dixon, Mace and Bouygues are sending

the highest number of fi nalists to this year’s CMYA fi nal. Willmott Dixon is celebrating 12 fi nalists, Mace seven, and Bouygues six. Meanwhile, BAM, ISG and Wates will all have fi ve

8 | SEPTEMBER 2014 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

construction managers in the fi nal, while Kier and Balfour Beatty will be represented by four each. Chris Richards, chair of the CMYA judging

panel, told CM: "The exceptional high standard [of previous years] was maintained; the judges recognised that all the projects were commenced and completed within this recession, which brought out additional management qualities that they had to demonstrate in order to overcome associated problems." He added that 10% of this year's entries had

come from Scotland, while six contractors had entered for the fi rst time.

reputation on what you are

going to do”. That is so true, especially when it comes to politicians, who expect us to believe that what they are going to do is more relevant than what they have done.

As we begin the long slog to the

general election on 5 May 2015, the news will be full of great intentions as a substitute for action. Times are very diffi cult at the moment, not just at home, but in other parts of the world, be it the Ukraine, Iraq or West Africa where the Ebola crisis is set to explode. Tackling these issues requires strong leadership and positive actions and at the moment the response has been more about not making any waves lest the electorate is upset. Not upsetting the electorate also

seems to be guiding domestic policy. The latest announcement by the government that it intends to pump £200m into brownfi eld sites to avoid development of the countryside plays well with rural voters, but fails to address the issue that the rural economy is short of low-cost housing. Under the scheme, councils will be

given the chance to bid to set up 10 new housing zones in urban areas across the UK and the local authorities will have to commit to building between 750 and 2,000 new homes. Overall, that means at best 20,000

new homes and at the worst only 7,500. I suppose it is not to be sniffed at but it is hardly ambitious. I have recently returned from Hong

Kong where we had the fi nal of the CIOB Global Student Challenge. We visited the redevelopment of the former Kai Tak Airport, a brownfi eld site that has been set aside for low cost housing. The four blocks we visited housed

the equivalent of the population of Stratford-upon-Avon, more than 32,000 people. That’s ambition, and the plan is to do it twice over on the remaining site. Compared with London, these homes

are lived in, they are connected to the excellent public transport system and are geared to creating a community. Perhaps we should return to high

density living spaces and enable us to maximise the number of people who can live in these spaces. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with high-rise, high-density living. Judging by the number of high end towers going up in London, it works for the rich so why not for the poor? It might simply be a case of building

to a better standard than the 1960s high rises, but also better education and preparation for living in such spaces.