CONSTRUCTION CHALLENGES

From the refurbishment of a Grade II listed building in Exmouth to an incredible new development in the heart of Exeter, Steve Bradley and the Devon AHCS team are embracing the challenges of delivering high-quality new homes to the area.

As Regional Construction Manager of Acorn Exeter, Steve has a vast experience in overseeing the construction process. One of the first challenges he had to face was recruiting delivery teams from scratch, and then establishing a relationship with local supply chain teams capable of delivering these high-end schemes.

Between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, construction started on both St. Leonards Quarter in Exeter and Rolle Gardens in Exmouth, these two developments combined will deliver a total of almost 200 open market and affordable homes.

Our first Exeter scheme, St. Leonards Quarter, will deliver one-hundred and forty-six new homes to the heart of the city. Providing a mix of 1 to 5 bedroom apartments, townhouses and detached houses, the development will be suitable for every lifestyle, plus the advantageous location will allow future residents to reach the centre and the bustling riverside in a less than 10-minute walk.

Rolle Gardens in Exmouth, will provide thirty-three new homes, including four apartments in the refurbished Grade II listed building, Eldin House. The main feature of the whole development is the incredible landscape - a number of mature trees are being retained, which will give the future buyers a feeling of a private garden.

On both schemes, Steve has faced several challenges that have taken time and experience to solve. One of the main issues he has faced on both developments has been to manage the changes to the schemes as the design has evolved and try and keep pace with the construction rate required. Considering the differences in the design of both schemes, this was not an easy task and to help with this Steve holds weekly review meetings with commercial and technical teams, maintaining an updated monthly report to ensure both projects are kept on track and quick solutions are found.

At St. Leonards Quarter, in Exeter, there have been a fair share of obstacles to overcome, starting with challenging ground conditions, which proved particularly difficult when groundworks started, risking slowing down the start date of construction works.

Keeping the pace and speed of building works on track has been one of the main tests for Steve and the team. Between the supply chain shortage problems faced by the whole industry and the numerous challenges with highways and adjacent contractors, they haven’t had the easiest time, but they managed to make sure the works could continue by managing expectations and timings. As of today, construction is underway on all plots in the first phase, with the apartments and the houses at the front of the development set to be ready by the end of 2023.

The design changes at Rolle Gardens have mainly been to retain a lot of the ecology on the site, including bat protection and bat boxes to be put in place. Some aspects of the houses and apartments have had changes to make sure the spaces and the environment would fit together as expected from the initial vision for the site.

One of the other main obstacles faced by the AHCS team is the refurbishment of the Grade II listed building, Eldin House. The importance of the building and the structure is clear, so the design process for four new bespoke apartments has been challenging for the team, but after time, consideration and work, the new apartments ensure the building fabric is not changed, while creating modern homes in a picturesque setting.