■ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-trial-case-study-rye-harbour
The Rye Harbour Trial Project comprised the £9.6 million replacement of a harbour wall by a team comprising Waterways / Environment Agency (client), Jackson Civil Engineering (main contractor), Halcrow, EC Harris (project manager), Arcadis (cost consultant), Arcelor Mittal (steel sheet pile supplier), Team Van Oord in partnership with Jackson's (civil engineering) and Commercial Marine and Piling (subcontractor).
The project involved the replacement of a failing structure / steel sheet pile retaining wall as part of the Environment Agency's flood defence programme. The Environment Agency adopted Cost Led Procurement pursuant to their existing framework which enabled them to generate savings of 6% and also to progress from business case to project completion in 14 months.
In order to manage the constraints of a tight timeframe combined with protection orders on the site and working on a live harbour, the client, consultants, contractor and tier 2 and tier 3 supply chain members collaborated to find new solutions which led to:
■ Precious intertidal plants from the salt marsh being transplanted, avoiding loss of vegetation
■ Natural England accepting the habitat created at Rye Harbour Farm as mitigation for the mudflats lost when the team had to drive approximately 1000m of piling
■ Close working with marine ecology teams preventing any lost mudflats from damaging the environment and saving money in waste disposal
■ Jackson Civil Engineering and Team van Oord (tier 2) proposing a vibro-piling innovation which reduced noise on site so that birds were not disturbed and so that the team could work through the bird breeding season. This innovation avoided de-mobilisation and remobilisation costs of £117,000 and led to the programme time being reduced.