BuildBuild: At design stage…
Appendix F
The ecologist finds protected newts in the pond. The licence conditions go into Appendix F of the environmental report. The site drawings show a pond. Just a pond.
Stage 5 · Build it · Stop 4 of 13
Found on site
The back alley's bill so far: 107 weeks · See the bill
The information · A licence, a notice, and a cable nobody drew
The ground knows things the drawings don't. When it tells you, write it down the same day, and tell the people who need to know.
The wrong way
BuildBuild: March…
The digger
No fence, no ecologist. The digger strips to the pond. Rex, the new assistant engineer, finds a newt in the bucket. Then he sees quality and safety manager Priya's face.
Sand and a cable
The digger hits wet sand, not the survey's clay, then an old cable on no drawing. The gang nudges it aside. The minutes say "ground conditions discussed".
BuildBuild: Week nine…
The notice
The contract says: tell the client, in writing, to the named person, within eight weeks. Someone emails the notice to a client manager from the tender. She left in March.
Six weeks
The newts stop the job until the next licence window. Kofi, the commercial manager, watches the ground claim fail: late, and to the wrong person.
Kofi: Eight weeks. It was in bold.
The secret
And the cable? Still in the ground, on no drawing. One day somebody will dig there again, and it'll be a surprise all over again.
The newts were in the report, the notice went to someone who'd left, and the cable is still a secret.
+6 weeks on the back alley's bill: The rules nobody saw, a late notice to the wrong person, and a cable nobody wrote down: six weeks waiting and a claim that failed.