Letters: Let’s stop being superheroes and find some solutions

It will be a big job to get BAA flying high again

There can be no doubt that airport operator BAA’s new capital works boss Steve Morgan (NCE 23-30 July) has a huge challenge on his hands. Arguably his major problem will be to re-establish BAA as an “intelligent” client.

Since the departure of Sir John Egan almost 10 years ago, the change in ownership, the change in culture and the cost of Terminal 5 (will we ever know the true cost?), BAA has effectively asset stripped itself of in-house technical knowledge and airport engineering experience, relying on outsourced expertise from its suppliers, consultants and contractors alike.

For a large organisation such as BAA there needs to be a core multidisciplinary team capable of briefing, specifying, evaluating and managing − over dependence on a limited list of suppliers is not healthy!

Whilst remaining a major client, BAA is regrettably no longer an “intelligent” client at the cutting edge of innovation and best practice − it may have moved on but it hasn’t moved forward.

Clearly Morgan recognises the need to be an intelligent client and there certainly needs to be an element of constructive tension allied to competitive tendering. I don’t believe that what is proposed by Morgan is at odds with Egan’s principles − he too would have a contract and expect good value.

What has happened over time is that framework relationships in the absence of effective in-house management have become too comfortable and complacent with an almost slavish pursuit of process without the application of intelligence.

Much of what Morgan proposes makes good sense but is not entirely new − what goes around comes around. I only hope that we do not see a return of the “bid low claim high” culture so prevalent in 1980s’ construction practice. “Egan” was an intelligent way forward; his principles should not be lost in the current recessionary climate but allowed to sensibly and intelligently evolve.

Good luck Morgan. I wish you well.

• David H Williams (F), davidhwilliams_@btinternet.com

Witching over from civil engineering

It is all very well wringing hands about the poor salaries paid in the civil engineering industry, and trying to rally efforts to tackle this. However, I feel that it is a lost cause when the new Witch of Wookey Hole is appointed on a wage of £50,000, just to sit and cackle.

This is a better remuneration than almost all of the posts advertised in NCE last week, including those requiring: “five years post chartered experience”, “extensive knowledge”, “track record of delivery” and the like.

As one of the older Members of the ICE, I cannot remember a time when the industry did anything other than complain.

Nobody goes into civil engineering to get rich, but I believe that the satisfaction of creating engineering artefacts and being able to say “I did that” far outweighs the experience of spending time amusing tourists in a damp cave.

• Cliff Billington, cbillington@ntlworld.com

Partnering not over yet

Your principal news item supplying an RIP tombstone to partnering (NCE 23-30 July) may yet be a little presumptive as the substantial local authority sector does not seem to get enough of this approach to procurement.

Most councils in the country have or are moving in the direction of framework or partnering agreements for their civils work.

It doesn’t seem to be understood that although such arrangements may include some (perhaps 5% or 10%) competitive economy in hourly charge rates, the much larger variable of time applied can potentially reverse any semblance of economy or competitiveness of such arrangements.

In this context the quotation in the last paragraph of your news item: “And when you spend more time planning and designing rather than building something that doesn’t seem right,” is telling.

• Arvind Kumar, Kumar Associates, 2 Penn Road, Beaconsfield

Finding out what went wrong

As the legal battles arising out of the construction of the new Wembley Stadium continue their trail of destruction through the UK construction industry, can someone remind me what forms of contract were used for the project and who was responsible for drafting them? We need to know.

• AN Beal (M) a.beal@btinternet.com

Sometimes ‘out with the old’ is not always best

The favourable comments by JW Hall on the beneficial use of vibro compaction (Letters 6-13 August) are welcomed but his unawareness of the many uses of the technique prior to 1979 is worrying.

What efforts were made then to discover previous uses and research carried out with this technique?

Retired engineers, like myself, are worried that many techniques we once used successfully are too often reported as novel some decades after they were accepted into general practice.

Vibroflotation for the compaction of granular soils was invented by Sergey Steuerman in about 1935 in Germany and many reports were published about its use before it was introduced into the UK by Taylor Woodrow’s Terresearch in 1954.

The first use was at the 600MW Castle Donington Power Station compacting granular soils to support the Cooling Towers.

It presented no problems and served its purpose until the power station was closed recently. The technique was then applied to a range of soil conditions.

• David Quinion (F) david.quinion@btinternet.com