Having built the original Fosse Park retail centre 30 years ago, we were awarded the £48.9m contract to build an extension – Fosse Park West and Fosse Food Central – for The Crown Estate.
We met stakeholders and developed joint principles and a mission statement for how the project was to be run – this was our Fosse Charter. This created a team ethos and enabled key parties to understand everyone’s role and strengths. It helped the team collectively overcome challenges such as:
- An anchor tenant going into administration with a key unit being redesigned.
- Logistical challenges of delivering around an existing, live shopping park, maintaining permanent delivery access to all of the existing units
- Covid-19 pandemic and the new way for working to allow construction to continue safely throughout
Regular communications were made with centre management and tenants and a monthly meeting with local employment and education agencies to discuss employment and apprenticeships. This lead to:
- Two recruitment days and two posts being filled.
- Work experience/placements were given 12 students which in turn lead to the employment of four brickwork apprentices and one management graduate
Fosse Park West included an anchor unit for Next PLC, a main retail terrace for 10 units and two kiosk units. We also constructed a main car park area and return link mall.
Fosse Food Central consisted of the demolition of the existing structure and construction of a two-storey food court, which provides four retail units and 13 areas for casual dining or restaurant formats, a management suite, customer facilities and a link to Fosse Park West. Highways alterations concluded the development.
This was the first Bowmer + Kirkland site to achieve Considerate Constructors Scheme Ultra Site Status. The project was part of £168m further investment in Fosse Park by The Crown Estate.
Simon Lloyd, Fox Lloyd Jones, Project Managers for The Crown Estate said:
“B+K had a strong, passionate, open leadership team that fully engaged and contributed to The Crown Estate’s vision for this project. Their values and behaviours aligned exceptionally with the client and were embedded through the project team and supply chain via B+K’s Fosse Charter – something quite unique and formed on an exemplar health, safety, and wellbeing vision for the project.
“Involving very different buildings, separate design teams and highly complex infrastructure change in a live environment, the project could not have been delivered without excellent collaboration and communication at all levels with all stakeholders – the B+K team should be proud of what they have achieved”.
