ANDY ALDER | INTERVIEW


“And it was successful and on the back


of it the same team won the extension to Woolwich Arsenal – which was back again into the tunnelling world with two and half kilometres of tunnel under the Thames. Throughout my career I have found myself working outside of tunnelling and then back in again. “Our next big win was the Tottenham


Court Road upgrade for London Underground. We had quite a few of the team from Docklands Light Railway, and quite a lot of the systems that we had put in place for that, and which I had got from the Project Management masters, we used as part of our bid for TCR Station Upgrade. “We won that project because we went


in there not just saying ‘this is how we’re going to do stuff’. Instead, we said, ‘We have all the management plans, this is the team, these are the people, this is how we’re going to manage it, this is how we’re going to control design, this is our quality plan, and everything is ready to go.’ That was our proposal and we were successful. “A big part of our strategy was to


co-locate the architectural team, the civil structural team, and the mechanical electrical team together with the client representative as well, and put them all in the same building. We set up an office for it in Centre Point [a well-known tower block in Tottenham Court Road]; and, that was the first time I’ve heard of co-locating teams in that way. “It took a bit of courage in our partners to


put their people in our office. That was quite a change in approach for some people but it worked, and it worked really well. We laid out the office in a way that the leads of each of the functions all sat in one group. Each of their functions radiated out from that hub, so that the team members who would naturally talk to each other could still do so, all the tunnelling team members would talk to each other, and all the structural team members; but it also made sure that all the different disciplines would interact as well; it built those relationships, and it worked really well. “We got the whole design, from basic


concept to contract documents, produced in just 18 months including all the approvals; it was remarkable how quickly we got the design done. And, part of that was just putting people’s desks in the right place next to each other. “Having the client team with the design


team was also critical to our success. That way there was no getting to the end of a


I WAS LOOKING AT HOW WE COULD BRING IT BACK


INTO OUR OWN CONTROL, AND IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT THE BETTER WAY WOULD BE TO DRIVE THE TBM TUNNELS THROUGH FIRST...


stage then the client reviewing it and saying ‘we don’t like that, we want it like this.’ We worked together the whole way through. “The next big project was Crossrail. When


I first started work I had spent two years doing tunnel design and settlement analysis for it, then Crossrail paused, and now it was going back up again. I thought – ‘Right. I’ve got to be part of getting Crossrail built.’ “From a tunnelling point of view it was


fantastically challenging. From a purpose point of view I understood from the work I had done for London Underground just how close to capacity the network was, and how essential it was to have Crossrail to relieve that. And it was my own home city. “So I was in there as the chief tunnel


engineer. I was setting up standards in a way that work; reviewing the designs as they got designed, steering them, guiding them to make sure we had good practical designs that were cost effective, easy to build, achieved what was required, and were safe. That was hugely complicated. There are listed buildings, other tube lines, critical services, water supplies, sewers, power cables all around you; so building it in a way that controls ground movement and protects all that stuff was a big part of the design process and the specifications. “When it became clear that design


was progressing in the way it needed to progress, the next challenge was: ‘how do we then convert this to getting it built?’ The programme of how the stations


and the tunnelling all fit together was very challenging; and, one of the issues when I first started looking was that the programme was dependent on the stations at Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road. “The stations had to be done before the


tunnels came through; but to be able to build the stations you have first to create the ticket halls. To be able to do that you have to demolish buildings and to divert some utilities; and, to do that you have got to get Party Wall Act agreements from local building owners, and get the utility companies to do their utility diversions. So you are in their hands, and the utility companies are going to need to get traffic permits, so they are in the hands of the traffic authorities. You are in the hands of so many third parties and any one of them can delay you. It was clear that this was a massive risk to the programme. “So I was looking at how we could bring


it back into our own control, and it was obvious that the better way would be to drive the TBM tunnels through first and then enlarge the platform tunnels and ticket halls around them. That was a change from the plan that was already on the table. It meant that the schedule was much more robust because we would control the TBM and the tunnel coming through and were much less dependent on all these other parties. That way also gave better settlement control. It also meant that a huge amount of tunnel excavation for the stations would go out through the TBM conveyors, so could go away by rail rather putting lorries on the road. That’s got a big safety benefit and environmental benefit and a traffic congestion benefit as well; and, so this was the way forward. “It had been made possible because we


had procured the tunnel contract and the station contract with the option to combine them in the same package. That was one of the big things that made a difference to how Crossrail was delivered. “The big regret about Crossrail is the


YOU HAVE GOT TO DRIVE A LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE SO THAT PEOPLE STAY SAFE EVEN WHEN THINGS DON’T GO FULLY TO PLAN


fatality. Rene Tkacik was killed on one of our sites when freshly-sprayed wet concrete fell on him. The impact that had on Rene’s family, his wife, his daughter… it’s just too painful; and the effect on the team, on his colleagues was horrendous. The accident happened in an exclusion zone with controls in place, but after the event the industry came together and we looked at what we are going to do to further improve the way we build to make sure that never happens again. A higher standard was


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