St. Quintin Park Estate, North Kensington

£7m phased refurbishment of mansion block flats in partnership with William Sutton Trust. The St Quintin Park estate had experienced modernisation contracts on a stop-go basis over a number of years with different contractors. A decision was taken to enter into a "partnering" contract with the contractor who had just successfully completed the latest phase of modernisation, Durkan Ltd. At this stage the idea was to go for a design and build solution and that all the existing consultants would be employed through the contractor to engineer savings with the exception of the QS who was retained direct with WST but in a lesser role as a Cost Advisor. The Clerk of Works role was omitted and Durkan carried out a self-certifying role.

The contract was executed under an unamended JCT Design & Build contract but with no retention held. The zero retention was passed on to sub-contractors and this generated some real savings.

William Sutton Trust, and Durkan Ltd had already achieved a good " swings and roundabouts" understanding prior to partnering coming on to the scene. The feedback from tenants satisfaction surveys carried out after modernisation was always good and this formed the basis for adopting a partnering approach with Durkan for the remainder of the modernisation on this estate.