approach across the country with the Blue Book providing a good reference guide. You know, hand on heart, all the years we have been dealing with licensing authorities I can honestly say we have never found ourselves in a corner with any licensing authority, albeit we have come close on some occasions but not, I would hasten to add, of our own making. Have you worked on any jobs outside of the UK? I wonder what obstacles you found with going outside our borders. No, we have not done anything outside of the UK since the late 1980’s when we did a little bit of work in the Middle East. I would not discount the opportunity of carrying your bags on some of the overseas ventures to bring to the table whatever we may be able! Is everything you do nowadays based on computer assisted drawing? (CAD)
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All work we carry out in the office is electronically produced and has been since probably 1995. It was Total at the time who instigated that switchover from drawing board to CAD and I guess during that 1994 –96 period we became a CAD based practice. I guess you deal a lot with main contractors and civil engineers. Is that a particular daunting experience? Dealing with principal contractors, both of a building and engineering discipline is a part of the everyday life and in general we are probably fortunate that the majority of whom we are involved with are well experienced in the field and have proven track records. Again, I think there has been a shift from general building contractors performing any work of a petroleum nature and this has benefited the industry enormously. This makes our life easier and also delivers far improved procedures during the construction phase and a finished product article of much higher quality. Those contractors who historically hung on to the ‘shirt-tails’ of the industry and been reluctant to change have slowly been identified and seem to have moved on to other things. 52
This being a fast track industry, what has been for you the quickest new site you have been the architect for? As a practice when construction times back in the early mid-90’s became what I considered crazy, we were fortunate enough never to be involved with those particular clients, but since then sense seems to have prevailed which has also been brought about by more constrained regulation and particularly with respect to health & safety and in general time-frames for construction of sites is now far more reasonable. The ‘fast track’ effect on us as a practice is during the preconstruction phase where a client will require either planning or construction packages to be prepared in a short-time frame and you just need to be flexible in your approach in order to be able to deal with this. Once construction starts the pressure then invariably switches to the main contractor to deliver. If you could change anything what would it be? The planning system. Planning is a big factor in turning development sites around together with the utility and highway matters, which are a major consideration in any programme. But whilst not wishing to dwell on this aspect, where circumstances require LPA’s (Local Planning Authorities) to perform and for the record we once obtained a detailed planning permission for a Brownfield petrol filling station development site in 2-days. That must be a record, which I doubt will ever be improved upon by us. I cannot mention the LPA concerned nor the site, but needless to say there were political and other internal factors which prompted the LPA to deal with the proposal in that manner, but notwithstanding this case, the system needs to be changed. As an architect you must have had some odd requests. Is there anything you can share with us? I don’t recall anything in particular but asking Peter my business partner who joined me in 1983, he reminded me of an instruction we had to look at, putting a roll over wash on the first floor of a very constrained town
centre site, which sadly now no longer exists but needless to say it never happened. I guess we have seen a hard recession hitting the UK. What have you noticed about these recent times and do you see signs of any recovery? I am sure what we are seeing is no different to most other contractors, consultants and suppliers within the industry in so much as margins are squeezed, expectations are elevated and long-term forward planning is now a thing of the past. As far as recovery is concerned, I have no idea as any specialised ‘industry’ seems to follow a set pattern and I don’t think the roadside industry is any different in so much as when one is busy, all are busy, when one closes their books they all do. I cannot believe you spend all your time at work so what do you like doing when not at the drawing board? Over the years I really have spent most of my time working. I think it is just a consequence of the nature of this industry in so much as we have always worked countrywide and a fair amount of ‘ones’ time is spent on the road, which has tended to increase the working week. However, I cannot bemoan this fact as over the years we have been very fortunate to have maintained a healthy level of work, had some good times and been able to maintain a very stable group of people within the practice. Outside of work I try to put a few ‘gym sessions’ in each week and stay fit and maintain my youthful looks!! Neil, thank you for taking time out for us and for what has been an interesting interview and we wish you well for the future Brian, it was a pleasure and I’ll never forget our first meeting which was on a site in Milton Keynes when we were proposing a re-pump for Apex during 1988, the site has since been redeveloped on a couple of occasions for different owners/Licensees etc. but it has always been a pleasure working with you, being one of those individuals with whom we have referred many a matter and issue to.
APEA tel/fax 0845 603 5507 www.apea.org.uk
