Cracking the code

Stephen is no stranger to reviving the past as a Project Director or to the armed forces. He was trained in the Royal Engineers and commissioned to the rank of Captain.

While his project management has seen him work on the HMS Victory conservation project, The National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Women of World War Two memorial in Whitehall.

Bletchley Park was once the worlds best kept secret and a key part of the countrys war effort against Germany. It wasnt until the seventies that the truth about the park started to come out as the place where German codes and ciphers, including the well known enigma, were cracked.

But the huts where these men and woman had tirelessly worked had fallen into a state of disrepair so bad that they were almost beyond saving.

The Bletchley Park Trust had been set up 22 years previously. For the Trusts Chief Executive Iain Standen, it was all about preserving the historical integrity of the site.

Iain Standen said: "Authenticity has been the focus of this project throughout. Artelia UK and the many specialist consultants and contractors have done a fantastic job of returning this unique site to its wartime condition and appearance, both in terms of the buildings, which are in themselves historic artefacts, and the storytelling in the interpretation. We are all immensely proud of the results."

Plans for complete restoration began at the end of 2011 when the park was awarded a 5m grant as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund, which the Trust then matched with funds raised itself and the restoration project as a whole cost in the region of 8m.

It was in August 2012, that Stephen and his team were invited to tender.

He says: The project plans had been running for a number of years and we were brought in at the stage when Bletchley Park was going for the delivery of the project rather than the planning of it.

From a project management perspective this brings its own challenges as Stephen explains: Because a lot of decisions had already been made when we came in, we had to find our way around them or run with the decisions already made.

For me it was a case of quickly learning and absorbing the project detail which is a challenge  when you come into the project at a relatively late stage. It is about getting the confidence of the project team that have been working on it already and asking pertinent, challenging questions so that you can satisfy yourself that you have totally bought into and understand the Bletchley vision.

The project itself was broken down into three specific areas, the landscaping elements, the restoration of Block C (visitor centre) and the codebreaking huts (1,3 and 6).

The huts were in a truly dire condition. adds Stephen: The initial thought was, how on earth are we going to be able to conserve, maintain and make these right again, because they were literally about to collapse. The huts themselves were leaking which had caused significant structural damage, it was a real challenge. Block C brought its own challenges too. There was a virtual garden growing all across the roof and internally it was saturated and home to a couple of bats and lots of pigeons.

Taking the huts themselves as an example. When you walk into the huts, we wanted people to return to the way they were in 1940. However, at that time they were virtually brand new themselves, only we didnt want them to look completely brand new, there had to be a real feeling of history and stepping back in time.  The entire appearance of the huts needed to be of the 1940s, even down to the type of screws used on the door hinges.

There were small things, like when we first looked at the cost plans for the huts there was just  1,000 set aside for temporary water proofing - a few tarpaulins basically. We quickly saw that wasn't going to be the answer. After discussing these issues with the Client, it was a case of putting our plan into place and bringing everybody with us.

Stephen says that a key challenge that contributed to the success of this project was to create a procurement plan to safe guard Bletchley and get the right Contractors and suppliers on board.
 
He adds: We had to work fast as we had a hard stop deadline of having the work completed by 6th June 2014 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the D Day Landings.   By the time we had got the visualisation sorted and the plans in place it was September 2012 and by February 2013 we had a main contractor on board.  I have to say that the key to this was teamwork, collaboration really was everything.

Our procurement plan was a hybrid solution in that we had two different situations.

With Block C we had the opportunity to get in and look and see what it was all about, we could see this as a lump sum traditional procurement route, the same applied for the landscaping.

But in the huts, our fear was that there were so many things hidden away that until you started pulling the building to pieces you wouldn't be able to find out the real costs.

So for the huts we had a two stage process. We procured a contractor for a lump sum for Block C and the landscaping.  We and then put them onto a two stage process for the huts which enabled the design team to work with the contractor and do some sample taking apart and get a real understanding  for what was needed.

To ensure the team, and in particular the Contractor, took the huts second stage tender seriously we introduced a pain and gain mechanism.   So our aim of the  hybrid procurement plan was to give a high level of cost certainty before we started working on the huts but it needed the right contractor. 

During stage two we were continually challenging the repair methods and extent of fabric renewal.   There was a driver that we were not to remove the character of the huts so the architect and structural engineer were heavily involved, regularly taking us through the repair and conservation details of things like the walls, ceilings, paintwork and how we were going to deal with them.

I don't know many HLF projects that have this hybrid procurement model where there is a combination of traditional lump sum, two stage and pain and gain mechanism so this made it a unique project for us and the team.

Stephen is particularly experienced in the heritage restoration field.

Stephen adds: The historical nature of the site and the complexities that surround that make it different than working on a new build project. With a new build you know you are starting from scratch and once youre out of the ground there should be a high level of time and cost certainty.   With this project we were peeling back the layers and revealing more and more unique issues to be addressed and all the time needing to retain the authenticity of the historical features.

Architecturally there was a lot of pressure to maintain the vision - and I think with a great deal of team collaboration we have managed to do it very sympathetically.

This goes back to the way in which we procured the huts.  We avoided a lot of change as the Contractor knew what he had to do, because we had been through a rigorous two stage process.   For instance following our recommendation, the Contractors tender included for a complete temporary roof over the huts which allowed the tradesmen to work in relative comfort, improved quality and removed the weather risk from the work so our 1,000 budget for temporary water proofing went a long way in the end!

If we had just gone in with a lump sum price for doing the huts the contractor would have priced in a high degree of  risk and we would have been faced with constant change requests - so by being open with the Contractor and giving them an opportunity to work with the professional team and fully appreciate the issues we were able to take some of that risk away.

One of the things with this project that I felt has been really unique, is that the team have really connected with Bletchley and what was achieved here  during the war and how we could help pay tribute to them by playing our part in helping tell their story.

I have said more than once, sitting in a hot cabin in the middle of the summer trying to work out some tiny details to move things forward and you think to yourself well they (codebreakers) did it under more difficult conditions so weve got no excuse! There has been a huge respect for what happened here during the Second World War and it really puts things into perspective.

From a Project Managers point of view project management is like codebreaking itself - you know what you want but though process you have to tease bits and pieces out and then suddenly things fall  into place.

Stephen explains some of the tough decisions he faced during the process.

There were a lot of tough decisions. One of the project risks we identified for Block C was getting the building dried out in time so that the contractors programme would not be unduly affected. The design team were talking about spending some money on temporary repairs to start drying it out but when it came to costing it was 100,000.

I spoke to the client and said that we shouldnt be spending that sort of money on temporary repairs so I suggested that when we procured the contractor, we should do so with the option to have a temporary roof erected over the wettest part of the building and work that into the cost plan, then all the liability stays with the contractor. The client listened and it turned out to be the right decision.

As a project manager there are tough decisions to make and you simply cannot be a passive project manager in this type of environment, you need to show leadership and the client is looking at you to make these informed recommendations.

The codebreakers reached their own eureka moments during the war and it was all about team, innovation and diligent process. With this restoration project I believe that have continued in that vein but when you consider the years of work carried out by the Trust and its supporters to save Bletchley Park we The project team are only  one small part of something bigger that had happened here. Bletchley is truly a national treasure that has a fantastic awe inspiring story to tell.

Biography
Stephen is a HLF Registered mentor and monitor and project director with a track record that includes projects at The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Chatham Historic Dockyard, Great Dixter, Fishbourne Roman Palace, the Novium and the Women of World War II Memorial in Whitehall. Prior to joining Artelia, Stephen was trained in the Royal Engineers and commissioned to the rank of Captain, where his appointments included designer, engineer, team leader, project manager and ultimately Garrison Engineer.
Stephen is also Project Director for the Command of the Oceans project at Chatham Historic Dockyard, HMS Victory conservation project, HMS Caroline at Belfast and the Royal Marines relocation project at Portsmouth Dockyard.

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This article first appeared in Project magazine. APM members can read all feature articles from Project magazine over recent years by accessing the Project magazine archive.

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