News – Baily Garner

Two partners join SEC research groups

Two of our partners, Andrew Little and Rob Ireland, have joined sector research groups set up by South East Consortium (SEC).

COVID-19 – an opportunity for change

In March 2020, along with the rest of the world, the UK Construction industry was disrupted in a way that none of us had experienced before by the coronavirus pandemic. At Baily Garner, like most other businesses, we had to react quickly to enable our operations to continue, whilst keeping our employees safe as we went into a nationwide lockdown.

Christmas Charity Donation

We know that 2020 has been a difficult year for many people, so this year we will be donating the £15,000 that we would usually spend on a Christmas drinks event to charity.

The end of gas?

As part of our involvement with this year’s HOMES UK conference, Partners John Milner and Ian Maun spoke at a session about the proposed future ban on gas boilers in new homes and alternative heating sources that can be considered as a replacement.

Fire safety, cladding and the PI Insurance crisis – the perfect storm?

We are in an environment where the Government are making millions of pounds available for crucial remediation and compliance work, and there is a need to build more and higher quality housing, which will ultimately be governed by the need for new skills and accreditation. Alongside this, the incremental reductions in PI cover available and the increases in premiums and excesses applied, run the very high risk of restricted capacity in the market, greater risk aversion, or indeed burying one’s head in the sand and less appetite to deliver the work, all potentially leading to the perfect storm.

Managing Partner, Andy Tookey, hosted a round table session at the 2020 HOMES UK virtual event, to discuss the challenges, potential solutions and their implications for the construction market. Below he summarises the key points from the discussion with our panel of speakers from across the industry representing views from the insurance sector, consultants, lawyers, contractors and clients.

BIM and existing buildings: time to rethink?

The tendency to believe that BIM is the sole preserve of new-build construction overlooks the advantages it can have for the management and refurbishment of existing buildings. Partner, Rob Ireland, wrote the following article for the RICS Built Environment Journal to discuss.

Quality Summit 2020

Friday 27th November was the third annual Baily Garner Technical Quality Summit and this year, for the first time, it was hosted virtually.

Approved Document B (Fire Safety) Amendment – what you need to know

On Thursday 26th November 2020, an amendment was made to Approved Document B (Fire Safety) (ADB) such that the height threshold for provision of sprinklers is no longer triggered at 30 metres, but now at 11 metres for residential buildings, extensions, change of use or material alteration and mixed use properties under Regulation 3 (Building Works). Provisions of additional way finding shall also be required in properties above 11m in height.

Karen nominated for PA Life Club Member of the Year

Congratulations to Karen Crowley (PA to Managing Partner, Andy Tookey) who has been shortlisted for the PA Life Club Member of the year award.

HOMES 2020 sponsorship

We are pleased to once again be involved with the HOMES 2020 conference as registration sponsors.

Lockdown 2 offices update

Following the announcement of a second lockdown in England starting from Thursday 5^th November, we will be ensuring we work within the current Government guidelines.

Our Newest Associate Partner

We are delighted to announce the promotion of Ben Nixon to Associate Partner on 1st November 2020.

Ben joined Baily Garner in February 2019 and since then he has become a chartered building surveyor (MRICS) and chartered construction manager (MCIOB).

Andrew Little promoted to Equity Partner

We are pleased to announce that Andrew Little has been promoted to Equity Partner. Read more >

Procure Partnerships Framework

We are proud to announce that Baily Garner has been appointed to the Procure Partnerships Framework Professional Services Agreement, which runs from 2020-2024.

Through this framework we can support our public sector clients in five different geographical regions and the framework allows clients to make direct appointments or to run a competitive tender. Read more >

Our Office to Residential Bulletin

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, businesses are changing the way they operate with increased home working. This has caused both owners and tenants to reconsider the future of their office buildings. For our view on the incoming rise of office to residential developments read our latest bulletin

Success at the LABC London Awards

Northdown Gardens won in the category of Best Individual New Home at the LABC London Awards. Congratulations to the entire project team for all of their hard work. BG provided Professional Services for this project. If you would like to read more about the project and the awards click here.

Our Fire Safety Bulletin

Fire safety on construction projects has probably never had a greater profile so our latest Fire Safety Bulletin, showing the impacts of recent legislation on the construction industry as well as what BG are doing to help drive change in terms of fire safety is an important read. in the bulletin we show projects and share information on this changing landscape.

Opening of our Eltham and Birmingham Offices

After the successful re-opening of our Head office in Eltham earlier in the summer, a small number of staff have now also returned to office working in our Birmingham office, as of Monday 27^th July.

Both offices are now operating successfully within the safety parameters required by government guidelines, but with a reduced level of occupancy.

Please note that at this time all offices remain closed to visitors.

APC Success: Our New Chartered Building Surveyors

Well done to our 3 new Chartered Building Surveyors from our Head Office. Jack Plummer, Max Skeet and George Gardner who all passed their APC exams and as of last week are Chartered.

Quality Results

It was a busy week on the quality accreditation front with Baily Garner being separately audited for 3 different accreditations over the first 7 days of June. We’re thrilled to confirm that we were successful in maintaining our quality accreditations for our ISO 9001 Quality Management System, our Cyber Essentials Plus IT security accreditation and our ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. Read more >

Dilapidations

In these uncertain times the many challenges presented by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has seen an impact on the economy and how businesses operate. With the obvious economic impact unfolding and the deployment of staff to home working policy, tenant’s will be considering their strategy for retention and future occupation of properties, looking perhaps at early lease breaks or not renewing leases. Landlord’s might therefore be faced with a tenant vacating early requiring them to manage a re-let. Read more >

Site Operating Procedures CLC latest (third) version 15/4/20

Baily Garner is now following the latest CLC guidance set out in its Site Operating Procedure Advice note (3rd) version 15/4/2020 and drawing this latest guidance to our Partners attention, to request that it is being followed on those sites currently in operation.

The Housing Forum – Coronavirus: a view from the sector

The Housing Forum members have put together a bulletin entitled “Coronavirus – a view from the sector” which reaffirms a Partnership approach to how the housing industry should manage the implications of the current Covid-19 public health crisis. Baily Garner LLP were keen and active contributors to this guidance which we would encourage readers to read, contemplate and share.

Kensington Street Shortlisted at the Housing Design Awards

Our Kensington Street scheme has been shortlisted in the Completed Schemes category at this year’s Housing Design Awards. Baily Garner provided Architectural and Employer’s Agent Services for this 100% Affordable Housing Scheme in Brighton for Brighton and Hove City Council and the Guinness Partnership.

Our plans and actions to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak (Update 24 March)

UPDATE 24 MARCH

As the Covid-19 crisis has been deepening, day by day, we have been carefully reviewing all our operations and putting plans into place to ensure that we are following and complying with all government guidance to keep people safe and reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus infection whilst, at the same time, also ensuring we continue to provide the appropriate service and support to all our clients and construction project partners. Read more >

Consultant Thought Leadership Group

Baily Garner are proud to be members of the Consultant Thought Leadership Group, a group of Chartered Surveyors, Employers Agents and Project Managers that have got together to help drive quality and change within the construction industry through collaboration and knowledge sharing. The attached open letter to all our clients discusses the impact of Covid-19 on our industry and discusses some potential ways through

Our plans and actions to deal with the ongoing Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak

Purpose

In addition to our Business Continuity Policies, we are doing the following in order to to deal with the 2020 Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak. Due to the changing nature of the risks, it is a plan that is subject to regular review and change.

Email Delivery Problems – an update

Following some changes to email settings made in a Microsoft update in January we are encountering a higher than usual number of mail delivery issues when sending and receiving emails from clients. If this is/has affected you, here’s some detail you should share with your email service provider or IT team so that they can liaise with our IT team to resolve the issue https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/use-dmarc-to-validate-email. .

Second Quality Summit for Technical Staff – “such an engaging day”.

Baily Garner’s second (and now becoming annual) ‘Quality Summit’ for all its technical staff was held at etcVenues in Monument London on 22 November and was another great success.

Second Annual Baily Garner Summit is Nearly Here…

All our technical staff will be attending our second Quality summit at ETC Venues, Monument on Friday 22 November.

As well as receiving technical updates on cladding and Part B, we will be talking “quality – from the clients point of view” with speaker contributions from

Andy Tookey and Baily Garner Feature in Masthead October 2019

The quarterly publication for the South East London Chamber of Commerce, the Masthead, features Baily Garner’s own Managing Partner, Andy Tookey as it’s Big Interview for the October 2019 edition. Read more >

Kensington Street Wins Best Architectural Design

Congratulations to our Kensington Street project team on winning the award for Best Architectural Design at the South East Construction Awards. The team worked in close collaboration with Brighton and Hove City Coucil, Guinness Partnership and Sunninghill Construction to deliver the 12 city centre units.

Jack’s Article – RICS Built Environment Journal

Baily Garner are pleased to continue our authorship support to the RICS Built Environment Journal and Jack Thompson-Smith has contributed to our latest publication on the important issue of taking care of healthcare assets which can be read here on Page 53

Kensington Street Shortlisted Finalist in 2019 South East Construction Awards

Kensington Street has been shortlisted as a finalist for Best Architectural Design at the 2019 South East Construction Awards. The recently completed Brighton-based project designed by the Baily Garner architecture team is nominated with the winners for all categories being announced on the 26th of September – Well done to the architects…and fingers crossed for 26th!

Karen Featured in PA Life

Baily Garner’s Karen Crowley (PA to Managing partner, Andy Tookey) has had an article featured in PA Life Magazine highlighting her work on the ISO14001 accreditation for Baily Garner. Read here how Karen helped to make BG more environmentally-friendly.

24Housing Roundtable Discussion

On the 1st of July 2019 our Partner Andrew Little was invited by 24Housing to participate in a Roundtable discussion on the subject of “Clearing the confusion” debating what have we learned, what has changed and what more needs to happen 2 years after the Grenfell tragedy. Read more >

Tops Club Shortlisted for Housing Essex Excellence Award

We are excited to announce that Tops Club has been shortlisted for a Housing Essex Excellence Award, Baily Garner provided Quantity Surveying services to the residential project. We have been nominated for the 2nd category – Best Housing Schemes Under 50 homes. The awards ceremony will be held on the 10th of October.

Member of South East London Chamber of Commerce

Baily Garner is delighted to have become a member of the South East London Chamber of Commerce and looks forward to joining all the other local businesses in making a really positive contribution to the Greenwich and surrounding area communities.

Congratulations to Dan – our New Associate Partner

We are pleased to announce the promotion of Dan Bridgewater to Associate Partner, effective from 1 May 2019. Read more >

Mock Interviews for Year 13 Pupils

We continue to take an active role working with and supporting our local communities, a recent event saw Sarah Chisholm take part in a “Construction Youth” organised event at a school in Gravesend, giving Year 13 students an opportunity to experience a typical interview scenario. Read more >

Baily Garner Breakfast Briefing – 18 January 2019 – Brexit and Construction (an economic view)

We hosted the latest in our series of invitation only Baily Garner Breakfast briefings on Friday 18th January 2019 at the Ned, Poultry…on the hugely topical subject of Brexit.

2019 Graduate and Year Out Application Deadline

Applications for our 2019 Graduate and Year Out opportunities close on 31st December 2018 – please submit your CV and covering letter as soon as possible.

Baily Garner Sponsor Homes 2018

We are delighted to have sponsored the Homes 2018 event at London’s Olympia and take part in two well attended sessions – Managing Partner Andy Tookey, co-author of The Housing Forum’s “Stopping Building Failures” report, joined a panel examining the findings of this best practice guide, whilst Andrew Little and John Milner’s presentation “MMC: Tipping Point or False Dawn” produced a lively question and answer session at this successful two day event.

We’re Cyber Essential Plus Accredited

After taking significant steps towards protecting our online systems to achieve Cyber Essential accreditation earlier this year, following a recent audit we are delighted that we have now successfully completed and been awarded Cyber Essential PLUS accreditation. The ‘PLUS’ accreditation means that, as well as our IT procedures and process complying with the standard, “at the time of testing, our defences were assessed as satisfactory against commodity based cyber-attack”. This is a great achievement which we are very proud of – huge thanks go to our IT Department for their hard work in achieving this.

Attending your University Careers Fair?

Autumn is always a busy period for university careers fairs – we’ve been travelling across the country talking to students about our Year Out and Graduate opportunities and have received some great feedback so far from Anglia Ruskin, Oxford Brookes and Nottingham Trent universities. Read more >

Congratulations to our New Associate Partner Os

We are delighted to announce that Os Kamil joins the partnership as an Associate Partner, effective from 1st November 2018.

Many congratulations on a well deserved promotion Os!

BG Quality Summit – BG’s Commitment to the Quality Agenda

Baily Garner held its first Quality Summit on Friday 5th October.

Around 120 technical staff took part in a day led by our Partners and dedicated to identifying what more Baily Garner can do to drive forward the Quality Agenda in Construction.

Baily Garner Quality Summit

Baily Garner fully support the Quality in Construction agenda and on Friday 5th October will be holding its own one day Quality Summit for all its technical staff as part of our drive to make our own difference in this area.

We will be looking specifically at topics that contribute to the overall quality of buildings and project management such as Read more >

Graduation and RICS Award Congratulations

Congratulations to recent graduates Peter Fisher and Will Gregory on receiving their BSc (Hons) from Birmingham City University and to Peter who was also presented with the RICS Award for Outstanding Achievement.

ISO 9001 Audit Success

We are committed to maintaining our Quality Management accreditation and were delighted to receive confirmation, following a recent audit, that Baily Garner’s quality management systems continue to meet the required standards for ISO 9001.

Digital Signatures

The Technical Stuff

Baily Garner have introduced digitally signed pdf documents using a 1024bit encryption public key infrastructure (PKI) certificate issued to Baily Garner from VeriSign. The certificates are held on a Class 2 crypto device, with access being controlled via a microsoft active directory authentication using a Strong Password Policy. What this means is that you have the peace of mind to know that signer’s digital identity is legitimate.

The ‘signature’ will appear on each document in a similar looking format and will include the name of the authoriser, the date and time the document was signed and a web link to this page to help explain digital signatures, see example

This gives you the assurance that the information has not been altered since it was authorised, as any modification made to the document after signing will invalidate the signature, and acrobat reader will allow you to see what was actually signed (the original document).

For more information see http://www.adobe.com/security/digsig.html

APC Success for June

Our congratulations go to June Park who can now add MRICS to her qualifications after passing her APC – a great achievement following a lot of hard work and another success for our professional development programme here at Baily Garner

Announcing our New Non-Executive Director

Baily Garner Equity Partners are delighted to be able to announce that Keith Exford CBE will be joining the Baily Garner LLP board as a Non-Executive Director from 1 August 2018.

Keith’s 30 years of unique housing sector management experience, including his former role as CEO of the largest housing association in Europe – Clarion Housing – will bring great knowledge, experience and guidance to the Baily Garner board.

Join Andy at CIH Housing 2018 Manchester

We’re looking forward to CIH Housing 2018 in Manchester from 26-28 June – Join Andy Tookey at the Knowledge Theatre, Manchester Central Convention Complex on Thursday 28 June 12.00 – 12.45 exploring key themes of the Housing Forum latest report ‘Stopping Building Failures’ and ‘How the Client gets Value from Value Management’

Andy Tookey Co-Chairs Working Group for Housing Forum Commissioned Report

A Housing Forum commissioned report, Stopping Building Failures: How a Collaborative Approach can Improve Quality and Workmanship, produced by a Working Group co-chaired by Baily Garner’s Managing Partner Andy Tookey, launched at the May 2018 National Conference.

Here’s a link to the full report, focusing on procuring for quality, harnessing innovation and building defect free homes, drawing on the experience of members from across the sector.

Baily Garner Now Constructionline Gold Accredited

After some diligent work by our Bids team, we are delighted to confirm our recent upgrade to Constructionline Gold status. Thanks in particular to Sandra Potter and everyone who helped her secure the accreditation for Baily Garner LLP.

Our Latest Associate Partner

We are delighted to announce Rob Tyler’s promotion to Associate Partner, effective from 1^st May 2018.

Rob joined the practice in 2010, taking advantage of our in-house career support and sponsorship to complete his BSc (Hons) and to qualify as a Chartered Building Surveyor.

Many congratulations Rob!

BG Feature in Women in Construction Project

We were delighted to take part and feature in the Women in Construction project. Read more >

Take a Look at our New Publications

Find out more on how our expertise can help you with our latest publications

Hidden Homes – how we can help transform your empty, under-utilised or derelict areas to deliver much needed homes

Building Services, Energy & Environmental – read more on our collaborative approach to Mechanical, Electrical and Public Health services design and sustainability advice

Launch of our City of London Office

As part of our continued growth and commitment to delivering a first class service to our clients, we are delighted to announce the launch of our new City of London office on 1 March 2018. Read more >

Jeremy Corbyn Opens New Community Centre at Ivy Hall

Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn was very impressed with the London Borough of Islington’s £6m development at Ivy Hall when he came along to open Brickworks Community Centre located in the impressive double height community hall. Read more >

Baily Garner Support Osborne and Demelza Children’s Hospice DIYSOS build

When Osborne asked Baily Garner to get involved in a very special project Osborne were planning, to mark and help celebrate their 50^th anniversary, we were only too happy to help.

Christmas Celebration at Sea Containers

Thank you to everyone who attended the 2017 Baily Garner Christmas Reception, this year held at Sea Containers. Here are some images of another enjoyable event. Read more >

APC Success for Suki and Alex

Many congratulations to Suki and Alex who have successfully passed their APC to become Chartered Building Surveyors. A great achievement and testament to their hard work and the continuing success of our professional development programme here at Baily Garner

Attending your University Careers Fair?

Autumn is always a busy period for university careers fairs – we’ve been travelling across the country talking to students about our year out and graduate opportunities and receiving some great feedback from under-graduates at Kingston, Nottingham Trent, Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Sheffield Hallam and Reading universities.

You will find us at Southbank’s Built Environment & Architecture Fair on Tuesday 28 November – come along and say hello to Adam and Rob or catch up with Zach and Max at Brighton University on Friday 1 December.

More dates will be added in the new year.

Homes 2017 – 22 & 23 November – London Olympia

We are delighted to be sponsoring Homes 2017 at London’s Olympia – drop by our stand and say hello on 22nd/23rd November. Join Andy Tookey and Paul Pearce for “Treating the Quality Epidemic” at 3.15 pm on 22 Nov – a subject raising concerns across our industry. The Homes Event is free of charge for Housing Associations, Local Authorities, ALMOs, Developers/Builders, Architects and Charities.

Baily Garner and Osborne and Building Space

Baily Garner are helping Osborne celebrate its 50th Anniversary by working alongside them to build a two-storey extension at Demelza’s Eltham Hospice in South East London that will allow seriously ill children the space to grow, develop and live life to the fullest.

Demelza Hospice Care for Children provide expert, compassionate care, free of charge to severely ill children and their families 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Baily Garner are working with other supply chain partners on this build with many donating their time and materials for free. Read more >

Celebrating our Latest Partnership Promotions

We are pleased to announce two promotions taking effect from 1st November 2017.

Congratulations to Mark Ellis, our new Associate Partner and to former Associate Partner Robert Ireland, who is now a Non Equity Partner.

Welcome James Thacker

We are delighted to welcome James Thacker who joined Baily Garner this month as Head of Commercial Surveying. James will play a key role in developing our exciting Commercial Business Plan in the coming months.

Join us at the SEC Conference 1st November 2017

We’re delighted to be exhibiting and presenting at this year’s South East Consortium Annual Conference on 1st November. The event is free for public sector clients – find out more on what the conference will be covering. You’ll find our exhibition stand in the Emerging Thinking Zone – where Bradley Webster and Jack Thompson-Smith’s session on “Pre-Manufacture: Fad or mainstream” will be taking place between 3:45-4:30pm. Look forward to seeing you there!

Congratulations to Amy Ramsook

Congratulations to Amy Ramsook on her recent success, adding BREEAM Assessor to her professional qualifications. Well done Amy!

Spring at Stonebridge shortlisted in Building Awards

Spring at Stonebridge Park has been shortlisted once again, this time the project is competing for the 2017 Building “Housing Project of the Year” Award, with winners to be announced in November.

Congratulations to everyone involved!