Peninsula Hotel, London – Sir Robert McAlpine

The contract was for the construction of a new 13-storey hotel (9 stories above ground, 4 below) in a prominent Central London location with an original budget of circa £400m. Unable to agree a contract sum with SRM for the originally envisaged ‘turn-key’ Design & Build contract, the client opted for a Construction Management arrangement, with SRM as CM and approx. 50No Trade Contractors in lieu of subcontractors. Bespoke forms of contract were used in all cases.

The project ran into delivery problems caused by a combination of ground conditions, late design release, client variations, supplier insolvency, poorly performing trade contractors and Covid lockdowns. As a result, the project ran significantly over time and the combined final accounts doubled the original budget to circa £800m. All of the trade contractors had claims to EOTs and the client’s cost consultants had paid each of them significant sums ‘on account’, pending receipt of formal EOT applications.

MWCS was appointed by SRM to assess the EOT entitlement of the circa 50No trade contractors. Co-located and working with the SRM team, all 4 key members of staff included in this profile were engaged on the project at the same time, which lasted over a year. Each trade contract was forensically investigated, the individual delay analysed, the causation identified and, where applicable, evidence provided to enable the cost consultants to make adjustments to previous payments.

Such analysis having been carried out by MWCS, the matters are now with SRM for close-out.