Cracking the code of project management

Our Project Manager Stephen Prowse has been featured in this month’s Project magazine. The article celebrates the completion of a significant restoration project at Bletchley Park, the Second World War code breaking site. Block C has been turned into a visitor centre, which has helped to create a sense of arrival for visitors to Bletchley Park. Also a number of Huts were renovated back to how they were during the war. The work was carried out to coincide with the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the wider World War One commemorations.

The Huts and Block C were in a terrible state of disrepair when Artelia UK carried out its initial review of the site. The huge overarching challenge was to conserve and maintain them whilst keeping as much of the original materials and atmosphere of the buildings. As Stephen Prowse, Head of Project Delivery at Artelia UK explains:

“With a finite budget, tight timescales, unusual building stock and numerous stakeholders, Bletchley Park has been a very complex but immensely rewarding project to be a part of.

Architecturally there was a lot of pressure to maintain the vision – and I think with a great deal if team collaboration we have managed to do it very sympathetically.”

We used a mixture of procurement methods and worked with the contractors to get best value from this historically important site. This comes from Stephen’s vast experience in the heritage restoration field. He has ensured that the project ran to time and budget.

The project was seen as a success by Iain Standen, Chief Executive of the Bletchley Park Trust, who described that “to see the veterans coming out of the huts almost with tears in their eyes that we’d got them back (to how they were), I think is recognition we got it pretty much right.”

Find out more information about our heritage work and case studies on recent projects.