FAO Swerv

[NotoriousREV]

You're probably the best person to answer this. Is it possible for the general public to get hold of full project plans for public works? For example if there's roadworks run by the Highways Agency can you ask for a set of the original project plan vs actual works completed?

[Gavin]

Would the original plans not have to be submitted the same as standard applications? Often found on local council websites. I guess that is essentially what you are asking though!

[NotoriousREV]

Would the original plans not have to be submitted the same as standard applications? Often found on local council websites. I guess that is essentially what you are asking though!

I don't want the physical plans, I want the project plan: what works are being done where and when

[Gavin]

Freedom of Information request to the relevant planning department might see you right?

[NotoriousREV]

Yeah, that was my fallback plan.

[Gavin]

Yeah, that was my fallback plan.

Yeah, huge delay on the FOI requests to most public bodies.

[duncs500]

I think what you're asking for is the construction programme is it Rev?

I'm sure Swerv is the man to answer you better in terms of the HA but having done work for other public bodies that the general public have an interest in, the contractors are likely to avoid releasing that info as much as possible. Even under FOI they'd probably try to avoid it by way of it being 'commercially sensitive'.

Although if it's major works I'd expect them to have a community liaison officer who if you come across as nice (ie. interested) they might hook you up with the information. If you come across as a NIMBY they'll probably politely skirt around the issue. Even relatively small protects nowadays run drop in sessions for the public so also might be worth a try, if you have a legit reason for needing to know they'll probably throw you a bone.

Having said that, I always avoid releasing information to the public as much as possible, they always try to hang you with it eventually.

[NotoriousREV]

Yeah, that's my worry.

What I'm interested in is long running works over a long distance and what work actually takes place. An extreme example would be the M6 Smart motorway work between J16 and J19. 20-odd miles, 3.5 years of reduced speed limits, narrow lanes (with a very high accident rate) and, on the face of it, very little work at any given time.

Obviously it benefits the construction companies to simply set out the road works and leave it at that, but the overall costs to the economy must be huge. Given how we construct projects in the tech world, I'm interested in seeing if a change in approach would be possible or beneficial in construction projects. I don't expect to get anywhere with it really, but it's been bugging me for ages.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Totally depends Rev. Is it a Highways England scheme or Local Authority? The bigger schemes are generally published - see the A556 and A555 (A6MARR) for local examples.

If it has required planning permission at all (which not all schemes do), then it should be available online via the relevant Authority's planning portal, or via the Planning Inspectorate's portal if it's a national infrastructure project.

As Duncs has said, a lot of the stuff will likely be behind a FOI request, if it's even possible to get at all.

Could you give a bit more info as to what it is and where?

[NotoriousREV]

Totally depends Rev. Is it a Highways England scheme or Local Authority? The bigger schemes are generally published - see the A556 and A555 (A6MARR) for local examples.

If it has required planning permission at all (which not all schemes do), then it should be available online via the relevant Authority's planning portal, or via the Planning Inspectorate's portal if it's a national infrastructure project.

As Duncs has said, a lot of the stuff will likely be behind a FOI request, if it's even possible to get at all.

Could you give a bit more info as to what it is and where?

I'm not really looking at a specific project, I'd just be interested in seeing a representative example of a project plan (planned vs actuals) for a long running road project over a long distance.

[Rich B]

Given how we construct projects in the tech world, I'm interested in seeing if a change in approach would be possible or beneficial in construction projects. I don't expect to get anywhere with it really, but it's been bugging me for ages.

To get fixed prices and programmes with penalty clauses you have to design out as much risk as possible at the preconstruction phase, which takes lots of time and money, and still won’t be perfect.

[NotoriousREV]

Given how we construct projects in the tech world, I'm interested in seeing if a change in approach would be possible or beneficial in construction projects. I don't expect to get anywhere with it really, but it's been bugging me for ages.

To get fixed prices and programmes with penalty clauses you have to design out as much risk as possible at the preconstruction phase, which takes lots of time and money, and still won’t be perfect.

From a tech point of view, we de-risk by doing lots of smaller pieces of work rather than a huge monolith. That's patently not always possible on a huge infrastructure project, obviously, but I still think there's methodologies that could be applied. It's a purely academic thing for me, it's just piqued my interest.

[Rich B]

Given how we construct projects in the tech world, I'm interested in seeing if a change in approach would be possible or beneficial in construction projects. I don't expect to get anywhere with it really, but it's been bugging me for ages.

To get fixed prices and programmes with penalty clauses you have to design out as much risk as possible at the preconstruction phase, which takes lots of time and money, and still won’t be perfect.

From a tech point of view, we de-risk by doing lots of smaller pieces of work rather than a huge monolith. That's patently not always possible on a huge infrastructure project, obviously, but I still think there's methodologies that could be applied. It's a purely academic thing for me, it's just piqued my interest.

In construction you do surveys and validations, as gearing up to build little bits of road all along the route as a test would be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t really tell you an awful lot!

[NotoriousREV]

To get fixed prices and programmes with penalty clauses you have to design out as much risk as possible at the preconstruction phase, which takes lots of time and money, and still won’t be perfect.

From a tech point of view, we de-risk by doing lots of smaller pieces of work rather than a huge monolith. That's patently not always possible on a huge infrastructure project, obviously, but I still think there's methodologies that could be applied. It's a purely academic thing for me, it's just piqued my interest.

In construction you do surveys and validations, as gearing up to build little bits of road all along the route as a test would be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t really tell you an awful lot!

But you'd do that anyway. If you're tearing up 20 miles of road you'd survey the whole thing. As it stands today, no one is digging up 20 miles of road at the same time nor are they working on that entire stretch at the same time, they just set up the roadworks as if they are, so why not survey the whole job, then concentrate on doing a mile at a time, for example?

[Rich B]

From a tech point of view, we de-risk by doing lots of smaller pieces of work rather than a huge monolith. That's patently not always possible on a huge infrastructure project, obviously, but I still think there's methodologies that could be applied. It's a purely academic thing for me, it's just piqued my interest.

In construction you do surveys and validations, as gearing up to build little bits of road all along the route as a test would be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t really tell you an awful lot!

But you'd do that anyway. If you're tearing up 20 miles of road you'd survey the whole thing. As it stands today, no one is digging up 20 miles of road at the same time nor are they working on that entire stretch at the same time, they just set up the roadworks as if they are, so why not survey the whole job, then concentrate on doing a mile at a time, for example?

All that changing set up takes time and money - do you move all your welfare, stores, power, etc each time?

If you were painting a room, you wouldn’t protect everything but 1 square meter, paint it, wait for it to dry, then protect it and unprotected the next square metre, etc...

[NotoriousREV]

In construction you do surveys and validations, as gearing up to build little bits of road all along the route as a test would be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t really tell you an awful lot!

But you'd do that anyway. If you're tearing up 20 miles of road you'd survey the whole thing. As it stands today, no one is digging up 20 miles of road at the same time nor are they working on that entire stretch at the same time, they just set up the roadworks as if they are, so why not survey the whole job, then concentrate on doing a mile at a time, for example?

All that changing set up takes time and money - do you move all your welfare, stores, power, etc each time?

If you were painting a room, you wouldn’t protect everything but 1 square meter, paint it, wait for it to dry, then protect it and unprotected the next square metre, etc...

No, but if I planned to paint all the rooms in my house over a 3 year period, I wouldn’t put the dust sheets down in every room on day 1, either. It’s almost as if there could be a sensible middle ground.

[Rich B]

But you'd do that anyway. If you're tearing up 20 miles of road you'd survey the whole thing. As it stands today, no one is digging up 20 miles of road at the same time nor are they working on that entire stretch at the same time, they just set up the roadworks as if they are, so why not survey the whole job, then concentrate on doing a mile at a time, for example?

All that changing set up takes time and money - do you move all your welfare, stores, power, etc each time?

If you were painting a room, you wouldn’t protect everything but 1 square meter, paint it, wait for it to dry, then protect it and unprotected the next square metre, etc...

No, but if I planned to paint all the rooms in my house over a 3 year period, I wouldn’t put the dust sheets down in every room on day 1, either. It’s almost as if there could be a sensible middle ground.

Absolutely - but as always, cost is more important than sense.

[NotoriousREV]

The problem with that is, whilst the direct cost is possibly cheaper, the overall cost to the taxpayer is possibly greater when you take into account the effect of congestion, delays, accidents etc.

I strongly suspect, but I don't know for sure, that the welfare, stores, power etc move with the work anyway because these things aren't permanently set up for the entire 20 mile/3 year stretch.

[Rich B]

The problem with that is, whilst the direct cost is possibly cheaper, the overall cost to the taxpayer is possibly greater when you take into account the effect of congestion, delays, accidents etc.

i’m sure you’re right, I’d love to see the method of working all that out!

[NotoriousREV]

The problem with that is, whilst the direct cost is possibly cheaper, the overall cost to the taxpayer is possibly greater when you take into account the effect of congestion, delays, accidents etc.

i’m sure you’re right, I’d love to see the method of working all that out!

That's why I want to see some project plans. Everyone needs a hobby, right?