MoD Northwood Headquarters PFI Project

United Kingdom

Northwood Headquarters is built on the grounds of Eastbury Park, covering 43 acres with 71 buildings contained within.

A PFI Partnership between The Ministry of Defence and Eastbury Park Limited (EPL), funded by shareholders, Infrared, commenced in 2006, running until 2031. The project involved refurbishment or replacement of many of the key buildings. The site provides fully serviced office facilities, community areas and living accommodation for Military Forces stationed on the base. This was provided by Carillion until their liquidation in January 2018. EPL implemented their business continuity plan (BCP), and in partnership with the MOD, successfully put in place an interim services agreement. This gave EPL the ability to continue to provide uninterrupted operational support to the site, with no deductible service failures in this period of transition, whilst negotiating a new long-term contract with Skanska Construction UK Limited. With under 6 years left on the concession, there is an increasing focus on hand back. With this in mind we have started to delve deep into the lifecycle management, both in terms of ourselves and Skanska, the Hard FM Contractor. We discovered that Skanska’s approach to the plan does not fit in with the budget profile of the model. We also managed to secure a very knowable Asset Manager (Hayden Beakhouse) who could both challenge Skanska in the life cycle submissions, but also saw the opportunity to deliver more LC projects if we took control of the plan and chose what we could self-deliver, saving cost and delivering more.