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Landmark Klaxon!

Indeed, will have been minimal legacy furniture bought across on the scheme I'm using as a benchmark because it was previously operated in much reduced numbers from a temporary site. That was an 8FE secondary with a separate sports block, 11 a side and 8 a side grass pitches and an 11 a side 4G pitch.

Came in comfortably below £30m and in London too.

Must have been a nice rendered box, did that cover land costs and fees etc? To be honest I was just using it as an example theres far too many variables.

LJ, University/College buildings are usually more than Schools - got to sell it to all the students after all.
 
They are certainly more expensive when run by a fucking crook!
 
Must have been a nice rendered box, did that cover land costs and fees etc? To be honest I was just using it as an example theres far too many variables.

LJ, University/College buildings are usually more than Schools - got to sell it to all the students after all.

No land, purely construction costs.

More render = more profit as far as our schools go, get away with as much as it as we can, think that one was probably 3/4 or more rendered and a pretty standard brick for the rest. To be fair we've got a very profitable model on the schools framework now, what we build is very basic but it meets the DfE OS and that's the name of the game unfortunately, local planners seem to push up the quality much more so than DfE or individual schools, like one we've got starting the other side of London soon is going to have to be full brickwork facades with lots of nice soldier courses and recessed panels but then we can claim extra money for that when it's enforced by planners.

The DfE framework is a bit of a joke commercially from what I know of it, nowhere near enough nuance in stipulating a project specific budget and plenty of scope for contractor's to provide very dull generic buildings. From what I've seen of other contractor's efforts they almost all provide a superior product to us, in terms of aesthetics at least, but then we'd rather win say 1 out of 3 bids with big profit in them than win 2/3 with a much tighter margin and more complex build. Hard to knock their approach at the moment as it's usually very profitable, think attitudes would change significantly if there was some sort of pain/gain profit share agreement in the framework like a lot of Universities seem to be heading towards.
 
No land, purely construction costs.

More render = more profit as far as our schools go, get away with as much as it as we can, think that one was probably 3/4 or more rendered and a pretty standard brick for the rest. To be fair we've got a very profitable model on the schools framework now, what we build is very basic but it meets the DfE OS and that's the name of the game unfortunately, local planners seem to push up the quality much more so than DfE or individual schools, like one we've got starting the other side of London soon is going to have to be full brickwork facades with lots of nice soldier courses and recessed panels but then we can claim extra money for that when it's enforced by planners.

The DfE framework is a bit of a joke commercially from what I know of it, nowhere near enough nuance in stipulating a project specific budget and plenty of scope for contractor's to provide very dull generic buildings. From what I've seen of other contractor's efforts they almost all provide a superior product to us, in terms of aesthetics at least, but then we'd rather win say 1 out of 3 bids with big profit in them than win 2/3 with a much tighter margin and more complex build. Hard to knock their approach at the moment as it's usually very profitable, think attitudes would change significantly if there was some sort of pain/gain profit share agreement in the framework like a lot of Universities seem to be heading towards.

Yeah i popped on my school cost model, yours sounds about right. I'd just been involved in a very expensive scheme which was miles over the DfE basis.

The problem with centralised cost models is that they are run by procurement bods and based on the most cost efficient building. This falls down on site conditions, planning, Client aspirations, Architectural intent, Programme and Contractor's profit aspirations.

Whilst a Client will happily hit you over the head with a DfE cost benchmark they don't like it when you point out the design thats based on.
 
Yeah i popped on my school cost model, yours sounds about right. I'd just been involved in a very expensive scheme which was miles over the DfE basis.

The problem with centralised cost models is that they are run by procurement bods and based on the most cost efficient building. This falls down on site conditions, planning, Client aspirations, Architectural intent, Programme and Contractor's profit aspirations.

Whilst a Client will happily hit you over the head with a DfE cost benchmark they don't like it when you point out the design thats based on.

We used to get that issue with the old Regional Framework that the DfE operated, local Councils and private schools could utilise it to procure contractors but they never seemed to grasp how the framework operated and what the buildings proposed/priced actually were compared to their aspirations. We had a right game with the final school we did on there before that part of the framework ceased to exist, in Bilston for Wolverhampton Council, they'd already developed their design far beyond the framework usually would at that stage and pushed it well beyond the parameters of the framework specification but as per the framework model we priced a generic school based on the pupil numbers and requirements for a school of that size. Price then continued to escalate as we tried to incorporate all of their bells and whistles, eventually ended up with a smaller, less ambitious design that they started with but still miles over budget and they called in the DfE to prove we were ripping them off. They got put back in their box soon enough and realised they'd misconstrued the initial bid based on standard framework design/rates, also didn't help that their internal cost plan was based on the last school they'd built about 2 decades ago, so the rest of the process was painful as they were upset about not getting their way and we tried to make amends incorporating as many of their desirable features as they could afford.

From what I've seen the current DfE model has far too big an emphasis on geography in it's pricing, as I understand they picked a median point for their base model and then you get inflation, either negative or positive, depending on where you're building compared to that median, generally North gets less money and South gets more. However, we have our own framework set up with subcontractors which has no such geographical bias, and a lot of standardised design elements, so in effect location makes little to no difference to our costs and any difference in the DfE budget as a result of location is all profit to us.
 
Picture says Phil Taylor is there in 2007 but that can't be true as the kid in the back is wearing the Burrda shirt from 2011/2012! I'll be sending my complaint in...
 
Picture says Phil Taylor is there in 2007 but that can't be true as the kid in the back is wearing the Burrda shirt from 2011/2012! I'll be sending my complaint in...

Maybe it's just one of those pictures of a time traveller that hasn't quite set the date correctly?
 
The bloke in the white shirt behind Phil Taylor's head looks like he's about to get his knob out
 
Ah man. I bloody love Waitrose :(
 
Should have gone more often then :D

I think them losing Ocado as delivery partner is seriously hitting them.
 
Safeway to waitrose always was a bit of a leap of faith.

Shame as waitrose is a quality supermarket, just not one to do you normal weekly shop

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 
It’s a really good supermarket. Just everything is bloody expensive which is an issue.
 
Waitrose closing lots of bigger stores, moving to "Metro" style smaller shops.
 
"No apartments will be created that do not have a window" - Visionary.
 
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