Newmarket House waste depot, Leeds, UK

Leeds City Council used an NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Option A (priced contract with activity schedule) to deliver Newmarket House - the city's new refuse and street cleansing headquarters - on budget and to the agreed revised programme in April 2022 despite nine separate challenges including a Covid-19 pandemic, an undocumented mine shaft and industry-wide material shortages. The BREEAM Excellent £8 million building on a brownfield site saves 128 tonnes of CO2 per year through more efficient refuse routes and on-site renewable energy, and was runner-up in the 2022 NEC Sustainability and Climate Resilience Contract of the Year Award.

A green operational headquarters for 130 vehicles and 120 staff

Newmarket House provides a base for Leeds City Council's refuse and street cleansing services, housing around 130 operational vehicles and 120 front-line staff. The new building replaced an existing facility and has enabled the council to redesign more efficient refuse collection routes across the city. The BREEAM Excellent building features LED lighting throughout, 50% recycled aggregate in all concrete, and a 63 kWh rooftop photovoltaic array that exports surplus energy to the grid. A new 13,000 m² hardstanding provides parking for 90 refuse wagons and 120 staff cars, with 42 electric vehicle charging points installed and subterranean ducting in all bays for future cabling. A biofuel filling station, living wall, nesting boxes for birds and bats, and on-site reuse of broken-out concrete completed the sustainability specification.

Kier Construction was engaged in May 2021 under an NEC3 ECC Option A, with NPS Leeds as project manager and supervisor. All subcontracts except the smallest were let on back-to-back NEC3 Engineering and Construction Subcontracts (ECS). Darren Dobson, Leeds City Council's senior technical manager, says NEC was chosen for its global recognition for collaboration, risk management, innovation and certainty of outcomes, with Option A selected as the most appropriate for the nature, value and timescales of the works.

Nine challenges mitigated to three weeks' delay

Dobson says in practice NEC worked exactly as intended, providing an effective legal and management framework throughout. Four-weekly workshops coincided with contractor programme submissions, with each revised programme reviewed and agreed collaboratively before acceptance. Activity schedules were reviewed in the same manner, with the project manager actively seeking to subdivide activities to improve cashflow for contractor and supply chain alike. Tom Wilson, contracts consultant at NPS Leeds, says the project encountered nine separate challenges: Covid-19, an undocumented mine shaft, other unforeseen ground conditions, a drainage redesign, inclement weather, industry-wide material shortages, extended product lead times, manufacturer withdrawals and additional client-requested works.

NEC early warning notices and risk reduction meetings were used proactively throughout each challenge, with the team developing and implementing solutions collaboratively in response to each risk as it emerged. The combination of NEC process discipline and team engagement meant that across all nine challenges the overall programme delay was mitigated to just three calendar weeks beyond the original completion date. Social value and community engagement exceeded all KPIs, creating permanent jobs and apprenticeships in the local economy. The project scored full marks with the Considerate Constructors Scheme throughout.

These NEC processes allowed the project team to develop solutions collaboratively and respond to each challenge dynamically and in a timely manner to mitigate delays. The collaborative approach ultimately resulted in the overall programme delay being mitigated down to a total of three calendar weeks, which is a testament to the level of engagement within the project team and supply chain.

Tom Wilson, Contracts Consultant, NPS Leeds

Benefits of using NEC

• NEC3 ECC Option A provided a straightforward, appropriately scaled procurement framework for a civic building of this value and complexity, with back-to-back NEC3 ECS subcontracts extending the collaborative culture into the supply chain.
• Four-weekly NEC programme workshops, combined with collaborative activity schedule reviews that actively sought to improve contractor and supply chain cashflow, kept the project team aligned throughout a programme with nine separate challenges.
• NEC early warning and risk reduction processes mitigated nine simultaneous challenges - including an undocumented mine shaft and industry-wide material shortages - to just three weeks of overall programme delay, demonstrating NEC's effectiveness under sustained pressure.
• The NEC 'spirit of mutual trust and co-operation' supported a genuinely collaborative one-team approach that exceeded all social value KPIs, creating local jobs and apprenticeships and achieving full marks with the Considerate Constructors Scheme throughout