CASE STUDY / OUR PROFESSIONAL APPROACH

CLIENT:

NHS TRUST, Whipps Cross Hospital

PROJECT:

RE-SURFACING WORKS TO MATERNITY CAR PARK 03

SITE AGENT:

DMD (Project Manager - H&S Coordinator)

THE BRIEF:

Strip out existing Street Furniture & fit new crash barriers & pedestrian routes, Jet & clean existing blocked gullies to allow free flowing into mains sewers. Mill off Existing Surfaces & lay 100mm Macadam to car park, total area approx. (2100 Sq. Metres, Total Tonnage Waste & Materials 640 ton). Lay new road markings to include new parking bays, disabled bays & motorcycle bays, with crossed hatched areas for access vehicles & emergency drop off points, clean down, clear site & handover. Due to the hospitals extremely busy traffic routes & footfall the site will require a robust Traffic Marshalling & Security system whilst carrying out the construction phase of the project.

DURATION:

5 Days. Feb 2019

THE SITE AREA: Our Challenges!

Whipps Cross Hospital is a major A&E, its grounds cover an extremely large footprint and provides healthcare support to communities covering Waltham Forest / Redbridge / Haringey / Hackney and parts of Essex.

As well as being a main hub hospital, it also has several bus routes which snake through the hospitals ancillary roads, also local traffic use as its a cut through from Lea Bridge Road, Snaresbrook & Wanstead Flats to major arterials including the North Circular, A12 & A13, therefore, its in use 24/7.

Daniel Davies DMD had previously been invited to advise the client on the condition of the car park & he quickly established then, that it was not fit for purpose. Having previously been repaired unsuccessfully by others, the car park had deteriorated badly. He suggested there was no option to patch repair, it needed to be completely milled back & resurfaced to make safe for further use.

TENDER STAGE: Our Professional Approach.

Due to Daniel Davies’s (DMD Senior Contracts Manager) Previous Advice & his close professional relationship with the Trust, DMD were invited by the board of trustees to tender for the Project to Resurface the Car park.

Once the tender requirements were received Daniel together with our Project Manager jumped on the case & carried out a pre condition survey of the site to ascertain its feasibility, it was quickly established that the 1 week program would be extremely tight, we thought a 2 week window would be more realistic given the current state of the surfaces, but the Client insisted the works needed to coincide within a 5 day holiday period in the calendar to shut down the car park & divert parking to other areas due to the extremely busy nature of the hospital, there was no option to extend.

Our Management team completed the Risk Matrix, Methodology, Program, RAMS, CoSHH, Waste & Traffic Management Plans also a Project Brief to hit the tight submission deadline, They also liaised tirelessly with our suppliers on long lead items & Specialist Trades to gear them up for a start date being 1 weeks notice from award of Contract? It was tight but due to the close partnerships we have with our supply chains we managed to successfully accommodate the timelines. Just! DMD successfully won the contract to carry out the planned works.

SITE ENABLING & CONSTRUCTION PHASE: Staying Pro-Active

As soon as we received the order we requested a Pre-Start Meeting with the Trust’s Facilities & Building Management Teams with less than a week before commencing on site Monday we successfully proposed a full Drainage Survey & jetting teams to come in on the previous Saturday also to fence off site perimeters & deliver Welfare & Site office cabin stressing this will not affect the operations of the hospital in any way. All agreed, we also lettered the local residents with emergency contact details & explanation of essential works to be carried out as the car park abutted a public road & terraced houses down one side of its length.

We stressed again the Program was very tight & given the poor condition of existing ground it was agreed we could work nights if required, only problem DMD would incur substantial additional costs so we wanted to avoid this if possible, it was also agreed we could have the following Saturday, but our Specialist Road laying crews were booked on another Contract to resurface a main duel carriage way in Essex so that had to be omitted. Although our other teams could complete the Crash Barriers & Pedestrian walkways on Saturday, this would not affect the surfacing works. This worked well as the Surfacing Crews needed a full 5 days without issues to complete the car park, as said this will be very challenging, indeed.

Monday Day 1, Offering Solutions.

All went well, whilst milling surfaces we uncovered additional buried and broken surface drains? Our Project Manager on site established that the existing drainage was Victorian, therefore not fit for purpose, he called in the Contracts Manager & they informed the client with a proposal to adapt the existing Traps & Chambers & to supply & fit new covers to all 15no gullies. The alternative would be to strip out existing chambers & pipework back to existing Mains Sewers & renew, only problem was there was not enough time as that would add another week onto the program. After many phone calls Daniel managed to source new covers from our supply chains that would fit the existing Victorian traps with minor adaptations. The works were successfully completed on Tuesday without any delay to the program.

Tuesday Day 2, Lateral Thinking.

We Continued Drainage works, Milling & Waste Away, The Trusts Building Management contacted DMD Project Manager informing a requirement for some of the Waste spoil (hard-core) so at a later date another car park can be temporarily filled around its many pot holes, it was agreed that our PM would accompany NHS Facilities Manager who would show him were to drop off the waste. Our PM thought this would be a great idea as our Waste Carrier needed to tip in Tilbury, Essex. Therefore, the turn around time was hours wasted commuting back & forth at 20 ton per tipper. We had 4 Tippers on call per day. Once at the location our PM explained that due to the congested parking, amount of vegetation & tight bends the tippers would not be able to tip, they spent half hour walking the hospital grounds looking for a spot to tip unsuccessfully. Once back on site our PM realising an opportunity to make up time went off again to look for a spot, after 45mins he went back to an area which had been fenced off with Hoarding, previously the facilities manager explained they had lost the keys, it was a disused Plant facility and had a good sized footprint. Our PM went back and luckily caught up with the tipper drivers as they were leaving, they returned back & managed to get our guys to remove the Hoarding gates & a couple of panels, we successfully dropped 3no tipper loads off (60ton) This gained us over half a day, which would prove crucial in days to come.

Wednesday Day 3, Overcoming Issues.

We completed milling, started laying Base Course, we started to experience problems with the macadam deliveries being unreliable we sensed there were problems, Aggregate Industries was not raising any issues at that point saying it was due to the holiday period being excessively busy? We pushed on while awaiting further deliveries, carrying out other tasks needed to speed up the process.

Thursday Day 4, Effective Communications.

Big Problems. Aggregate Industries main distribution depot for The South East Region went down, the plant had broken there was no Macadam coming to site? After many phone calls and due to our close relations with our supplier I explained the project was a live Hospital & they would need to make us a priority case for deliveries our contact in Aggregate Industries agreed & promised us first deliveries the next morning we had no options, the surfacing crews pulled off site for the day & we issued the client with a delay notice & informed them it was out of our hands, but assured them we will complete on time. (1 Day lost! Had to abort Line Marking road gangs that day too).

Friday Day 5, Successful Partnerships.

Aggregate Industries 1st delivery arrived late around 10.30am? Lost an additional 4 hours. Thanks to our long-term partnerships with the Surfacing Contractors we managed to speak to the MD outlining our concerns with completing on time? He personally came down and helped keep moral up, together with the Director of road marking crew they all pushed on and completed in a single day. It was full on. We successfully completed around 9pm that evening.

Saturday am, Day 6, Keeping to Deadlines.

DMD Gangs went to site extra early and installed the Armco Horizontals & Pedestrian Handrails also removed all perimeter fencing, it was successfully handed back to our client before Midday and open to the public that afternoon. Completed ON TIME & ON BUDGET. And we recycled 60 ton of waste hard-core. “Great Professional team efforts all round”!