Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

On Friday I handed in my PPE, laptop and called time on my secondment with Carillion at Battersea Power Station Phase One. If I’m honest this brought about mixed emotions. If you’d asked me two months ago how I thought I’d feel, I’m confident the answer would have been, “elated.” At the time I was at a bit of a low point on the project and constantly frustrated with not being able to progress works in the manner I’d like. However, over the last couple of months things have improved and there’s been visible progress in the basement, which now means that I’m almost a bit sad to be leaving.

During my time at Battersea the building has moved from a structure that was only a few levels tall in most places, to one that is topped out bar two cores. In my opinion it now looks pretty dominating if you travel into Victoria on the train or walk west along the river from Waterloo. The structure moving up has allowed the basement to open up – back propping has been removed and water ingress issues have been mitigated (to an extent) which have removed many of the frictions of trying to work in the basement.

When I arrived on site MEP activity in the basement was revolved around the installation of pipework and containment. I thought I’d be involved in the installation of an energy centre and variations to external works; however, neither of these activities has started yet. As I left site I was working in 6 of 9 thermal plant rooms, 62 of 89 modules containing 300mm dia pipework had been installed, and 4 of 12 TX rooms were in progress. I’d hoped to see the filling and flushing of core A (programme date Aug, revised date Oct), but this was still someway off when I left.

I believe my attachment has been as success, having gathered experience in competencies A1, C1, C2, D1, D2, D3 and E2, E3. Awaiting confirmation from AER3 my focus for phase 3 will now be on A2, B1,B2,B3, and E4.

Is there anything I wish I’d done differently? Not hugely. I believe I’ve got the best out of what was available at Battersea. In an ideal world my attachment would have started and ended 3 months later which would have opened up more interesting MEP work. In addition I would have benefited from there being more Carillion mangers working in the basement area – part of the reason that things picked up in the last few months was that the structures team put an additional project manager in the basement to progress their works. Perhaps I should have seen this as an opportunity earlier on, but I didn’t see it within my remit and would have probably been getting out of my lane trying to manage the detail of ground workers, sheet pile and concrete subcontractors. I’ve also not touched on the tender process whilst at Battersea as the MEP side of the job has been beyond this. On reflection this could have been overcome by working on another Carillion job for a day week or a short period (something my boss suggested during my wash up interview). Although I’m not sure this would have worked in reality due to the pace of life at Battersea – probably why it was suggested during my final interview if I’m being cynical. Something for phase 1’s to bear in mind though as they head out on phase 2.

Would I do this job outside the Army? Probably not, although, I will bear in mind the fact that everyone has re-iterated to me, “Battersea is not like any job they’ve worked on before”. That being said the people have been great to work with, the atmosphere is similar to that in a Troop / Squadron and at the moment the money is good; I am not being replaced at Battersea, which is due to the fact Carillion’s prelims are tight and the people who’ve recently been interviewed to join the MEP team are asking for circa £85k plus package. Carillion will try and bridge the gap until someone else from the RSME arrives, however, I imagine at some point something will give and Carillion will decide to pay something close to the market rate to get someone else on board the team.

I’m now working at Bryden Wood Group for phase 3 within the Mechanical team. There are currently two projects I will be involved in. The first is a Biopharm in Ulverston (making Pharmaceuticals that are biological in nature), which will be the first of its kind for GlaxoSmithKline in the UK . This project is in the concept stage and valued somewhere between £100 to £150M. The second is steam plant at a London University which is only valued at £50K from a MEP design perspective, so hopefully lots of scope for me to get a lot of autonomy.

Installation of Raceway modules progressing well. The four pipes on the left hand side at high level are CHW and LTHW F&R. These came to site on modules like the one that can be seen on the ground. Then there is more LTHW & CHW pipework which was installed loose, gas and public health.

The view £15M will buy you. Looking out over London from the penthouse in core A. To the left of the picture is the main railway line into Victoria so a double bonus if the owner happens to be a train enthusiast.