Construction

Helping you build your business

Our specialist team of 12 lawyers works exclusively on construction and engineering projects.

It is one of the biggest single site teams in the country and has achieved national recognition for its work
on projects throughout the UK.

Our expertise spans procurement, where our role is to identify and sort out points that are practically and commercially important to you – we do not waste time in fruitless battles over points of no commercial importance.

Another area where we have particular expertise is dispute management. We are proud to be the only UK firm to publish our record of success in adjudication (we have acted in 82 and lost 4).

We have developed our own approach to dispute management. Its focus is early and rigorous cost benefit analysis and what needs to be done to achieve closure on the best terms available and at least cost.

On construction projects we understand where the risks will be and what we can realistically expect to do about them. Overall we can add value to a project, which is why our clients keep coming back to us.

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Examples of our work include:

  • Acting for the developer of a city centre hotel project (The Pod, Nottingham, now an IBS Hotel) involving an architectural design competition which subsequently won numerous awards.
  • Over many years advising a developer and operator of hotels as it expanded its chain of mid-range and budget hotels across the country. Work included all construction contracts, consultants’ appointments, etc and also various more complex arrangements such as where hotels were to be built on difficult city centre sites.
  • Advising hotel operator on associated development of pub/restaurants to be located on adjacent sites.
  • Reviewing construction documentation of an operator, including framework agreements, building contracts, collateral warranties and bonds.
  • Advising on Framework/Term/Partnering contracts for contractors and consultants to provide services on a rolling basis, both in relation to maintenance of existing retail units and in rolling programmes of refurbishment.
  • Advising on the contract to appoint a consultant to project manage the rebranding of a retailer’s outlets in several hundred units around the UK.
  • Negotiating a contract for completely refitting over 150 outlets around the country, including changes in signage/branding, as well as refurbishment and in some cases extension. This involved using a single contract between the Employer and 14 contractors (divided into teams of 3 or 4 per region).
  • Acting for a client with a large UK estate we drafted a contract based on the CIOB FM contract to appoint a contractor to carry out an ongoing programme of minor alterations and upgrades.
    Drafting standard contracts for shopfitting works.

Chris Holwell | Partner

KEY CONTACT

Call: +44 (0) 345 050 3667 | Email Chris | View bio

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