NHBC Awards Scotland

Jim Martin raises the roof

 NHBC - Crossgate NHBC - CrossgateThe Miller Homes Site Manager for the Regents Park development in Crossgates, Fife, has been commended for the work produced by Jim Martin and his team.

Jim said it was a really good feeling to have won his second NHBC award, telling Premier Construction that the competition becomes tougher each year: “Once you’ve won a Pride In The Job award you’ve got to show the improvement to get your second,” he explained. “You’ve got to add that bit more detail.”

In particular, Jim said that the team have tried to raise the standard of roofing within the housing development. “It’s something the NHBC have particularly honed in on recently in Scotland and England. They’ve had a lot of people making claims, so it was something that we especially tried to focus on.”

The on-site team have done him proud this time. “I’ve had the same team for the last year and a half. It has seemed a lot harder this year, but we’ve produced that bit more detail that won us our second award.”

It certainly hasn’t been an easy project, requiring expert management on Jim’s part and a team who are right behind him. Stepping on from the original plan of building three, four and five- bedroom homes on the site, the team is now working on three individual sites on the development; they have taken on work from another contractor so are now also building one and two-bedroom homes. Taking over unfinished work has also involved re-grouting the units which had already been built over a twelve-week period.

“It’s been tough trying to keep on top of everything, managing that process as well as your original programme. It’s been a hard year, put it that way!”

They are delaying partying on the site until they get their NHBC flag, but Jim assured us that there will certainly be celebrations then.  Currently they are working on twenty-eight units, and Jim expects to be working on the site for another year and a half to complete a further forty units.

Already there are customers moving into the existing housing, which presents further challenges: “You’ve got to make sure that the clients living there are happy with operations on-site. It should be like we’re not even there, it’s so clean and tidy,” Jim said.

Having got into the industry at the age of fifteen through his father’s building firm and working his way up the ranks through different companies, Jim hopes that he can keep raising his game and will no doubt prove a tough competitor in the awards next year.

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Roma Publications