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Construction Manager of the Year Awards 2020: Residential under 10 storeys
Gold winner: Michael Saunders MCIOB
Lovell
Project: Orchard Place, King’s Lynn
Scope: Construction of 130 homes, completed in 164 weeks
Client: Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk
Contract: PPC 2000 with a wider developer management agreement
Value: £20m
Michael Saunders is in charge of aneight-project partnership with the local council in King’s Lynn that will ultimately deliver 1,000 new homes, and he completed this first scheme with bar-raising success.
With a costly earthworks operation looming due to the high water table, tidal deposits, and clay and peat content, he ensured project viability through his design solutions. By installing prefabricated plastic manhole chambers for the foul water sewers, he removed the need for piled foundations for the manholes or deep peat removal.
This also eliminated the risk of subsequent ground settlement disconnecting the drainage system from piled concrete chambers, simplified the sequencing, and was much faster to install than traditional concrete.
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Other infrastructure innovations included geogrids to stabilise the ground and precast modular foundations built to meet the exact ground conditions and house types under construction.
On a site with a high flood risk but no budget to raise ground levels substantially, Saunders installed flood-resistant air bricks, doors and drainage valves and ran all the electrics 600mm above finished floor level.
With the council delighted with his work on the two partnership projects completed in 2019, and the third early in 2020, Saunders is likely to be kept busy with the next five in the pipeline.
Silver winner: Dominic Jankowski MCIOB
Hill Group
Project: Fish Island Village, Stratford, London
Scope: Construction of 423 apartments in 16 mid-rise blocks, completed in 159 weeks.
Client: Peabody/Hill Group
Contract: JCT
Value: £105m
Dom Jankowski drove this 16-blockproject for 423 apartments while seeing off potential disruption. His rationalisation of the basement car park and his switch to a more effective piling method for its perimeter support rescued the scheme’s finances. And his solutions to access challenges with the precast facade rescued its programme.
He finished four weeks early, still on budget and with a high-quality end product.
Other finalists:
Tony Gallagher MCIOB Durkan, Manor Place Depot, Southwark
Matt Hamilton MCIOB Seacon, 6 Ilchester Place
Paul Jeal MCIOB St George West London, Beaufort Park
Tomasz Magiera MCIOB WRW Construction, Lakeshore – Copper Building, Bristol
Mark Woollen MCIOB Willmott Dixon, Winwood Heights, Nottingham
The January/February 2026 issue of Construction Management magazine is now available to read in digital format.
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