FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Chapter 7 Building for the Future

We could do it because we had our own plant, our own vehicles, and our own people.

wouldn’t be any HVM measures at all. So, he took the gamble and placed the orders: everyone would have to work with what they’d got. And there really wasn’t much time. We had £9 million worth of equipment to install within six weeks. We had allowed a week and a half to complete the works on The Mall; but in the end it had to be completed within three days over the weekend. John Skipper oversaw that, and most of the specialist (Dragon Teeth) gate installations for the London sites. Peter McAnany did the works at Wembley Stadium, and Clive Carter managed the ExCel site. Grant managed the whole process, working a series of 12-hour continuous shifts from the hub at Mulberry – and he got everything done on time, without incurring a single penalty or delay. That was a massive task. Working on the London Olympics was something that most of us will never forget. The opportunity to be at the centre of events of international importance is unlikely to occur again in our lifetime. The Olympics provided a wonderful showcase for us to demonstrate our capabilities to the world (and particularly to TfL). But there was a risk attached to the work: there were big penalties for failing to deliver on time. Many of the larger companies were unwilling to take on the work because of this. We could do it because we had our own plant, our own vehicles, and our own people. This gave us a flexibility that other companies didn’t have. When John Holliday was asked what we could deliver in the event of a major incident on the Network (i.e. a bomb), he was able to come up with a six-page list of grabs, diggers, etc. One of our competitors who was asked the same question (a larger company than us) came up with a single, lonely item on their

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