Student accommodation

Hands-on pre-construction management

This is a prestigious student accommodation development in the centre of Colchester which was delivered on budget and programme.

K2 undertook detailed analysis of risk which highlighted ground contamination, asbestos, HV cable diversions and an underground fuel storage tank. We eliminated risk through developing individual strategies for each element.

We provided hands-on project management, ran an enabling works tender and appointed an enabling works contractor to deliver pre-start works and successfully eliminated risk prior to the main contractor start on site.

Detailed risk eliminations strategies

Our hands-on management approach saved 12 weeks on programme and over £500k in contractor prelims and risk premiums. We improved the efficiency of the scheme to deliver an additional 10% bedrooms. We also managed a value engineering process on the external envelope with the design team and planning authority which resulted in a £900k saving on the external envelope package.

Over £2m savings on original cost plan

K2 worked closely with the design team to improve design efficiencies and successfully challenged assumptions and in-built inefficiencies in the design. We successfully achieved removal of a staircase, reduced building height to save on frame and cladding costs and improved overall space-use to achieve an additional 10% bedrooms.

We challenged consultants’ design to rationalise brickwork treatment and successfully managed the subsequent planning change with the local authority, which led to improvements to substructure and frame design resulting in a six week saving to programme and £200k.

Key contact

John Setra, Director