MOD MAIN BUILDING
Whitehall, London W1
TONY WARREN LIMITED
Modus Services
Upton McGougan
Kone
£2,000,000
Modernisation of 16 passenger lifts, two new passenger/goods lifts, two platform lifts and two escalators
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The Ministry of Defence’s HQ building was designed in 1915, however, due to two world wars, construction was not started until 1939 and took a further 20 years to complete. By the end of the century, ‘the MOD concluded that the building had suffered cumulative decline, was expensive to maintain and had severe Health & Safety shortcomings’ and ‘having never had a major refurbishment, the environment was no longer consistent with a modern business headquarters’ (according to the Office of Government Commerce). Consequently it was decided to redevelop the building and this project became the largest PFI contract ever awarded at the time at £746M for the works with a further £55M per annum as a service charge (as advised by the National Audit Office). ‘Modus is a special purpose vehicle set up to deliver...the contract’ (the MOD’s words), however it was Skanska that was the lead contractor.
Unusually (thank heavens), there were four parties involved in the monitoring and witness testing of the M&E services — it got a bit cramped on the car tops at times! The MOD itself had commissioned an independent consultant to keep an eye on things, Skanska had appointed their own one, there was a specialist commissioning consultant, and we, on behalf of Upton McGougan, were looking after the PFI contractor’s interests.
Not surprisingly perhaps, the project was completed ‘on budget and ahead of schedule’ (again the MOD’s words).
© 2010 TONY WARREN LIMITED
