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Bevan Morrison’s first build as project manager was one to remember.
Covid-19 and the Level 4 lockdown could not have come at a worse time for Bevan Morrison. He was in charge of overseeing the development and building of the new PlaceMakers branch and it was the first such project he had managed.
In the past, the Morrison family has gradually sold off parts of its farm that were rezoned industrial for developers to build on, but with the PlaceMakers site, Morrison Building Consultants took on the whole job.
“We’ve been developing the industrial land over the last 25 years,” Bevan says. “Previously, we have just been developing the land and selling the land for other developers to do. This is the first one that we have done and retained.”
The first ground was broken in November and all was going well until Covid-19 put a very large spanner in the works in March.
“Level 4 was a complete shutdown for 35 days. That was painful for everyone,” he says.
There was a great deal of uncertainty over when work could restart and how many people might be able to come back on-site. However, Bevan says Level 3 and beyond actually worked far better than they had expected.
“When we came back, we had a worksite that we could easily break up into different work areas,” he said. “The whole social distancing thing was pretty natural – there were people working inside, people working outside, people working on the roof, and so on.”
In fact, it worked so well that the build ended up finishing ahead of schedule, something which Bevan puts down to the dedication and flexibility of local contractors and their workforce.
“The building was supposed to be finished at the end of August, but we finished it on August 12,” he said. “I have to give credit to the guys who were on site there, as it was ultimately great local contractors who were committed, they worked weekends and worked extremely long hours.
“Everyone bought into the whole team approach and working in with each other. My job was just to facilitate, remove any roadblocks and keep everything working.”
Bevan said it was a deliberate move to use local people to carry out the build.
“It was a conscious choice with all the tenders to use local contractors if we could. It wasn’t always the lowest price, but supporting local was one of the biggest factors.”
The electrical works for PlaceMakers were carried out by Davco Electrical Services, run by Bevan’s brother David Morrison and with sister Jo in charge of project support.
They agreed that keeping things local helped the project to run smoothly.
“There was a real sense that we’d all just pile in whenever anyone needed an extra pair of hands to carry a window, or move a door. Everyone was in it together – it was so smooth,” Jo says.
