ROB SEYMOUR, 40, is the managing director at Bingham Davis, one of Liverpool’s leading consulting structural and civil engineers.
He has worked for the firm since it merged with Roy Billington Associates and Nickson Davis last year. Rob has provided structural advice to some of the notorious building projects in the city.
He is currently working on Mann Island, among others in the city. This is an account of his day.
6.20am: I’m the first to rise in my house, so under strict orders I wake up discreetly to the bleep bleeping of my watch alarm. My wife, Linda, is a teacher and is currently on school holidays, can’t pretend I’m not envious. I am, however, looking forward to today as I’m beginning the structural design with my team on Kings Dock Mill, a new major hotel and residential site just behind the Baltic Fleet pub.
7.55am: Always one of the first to arrive, I go through my “to do” list for the day. My emails flood in between the hours of 9-5 so for now I’m safe. Just opened an invite from my colleague, in Northwich Round Table, it is holding a Scalextric racing event next week in Crewe. I’m told the track will be bigger than 20m x 10m, I mark it in my calendar. Tim Bingham and Brian Edmondson pop their heads around the door to see if I’m ready for our directors meeting.
10.30am: It’s time for me to send over a quotation I have been working on for a £10m job for a major house builder. The task of quoting for a job is probably one of the most difficult tasks of the trade, as our price has to be low enough to win it in competition and enough to feed the family.
11.30am: I’ve just received a phone call from a frustrated contractor’s site agent on a project in Warrington. He’s worrying about some revisions to drawings we have to make to our client’s requests. I tell him that the changes have already been incorporated in his sub-contractors design so his stress levels suddenly drop.
I smooth out the final changes to drawings which are to be issued to the contractors by the end of the day. I have to confess I am a perfectionist when it comes to drawings and plans.
1pm: Time for a working lunch and I’m visiting Restaurant Bar and Grill, in Brunswick Street, with Tim, Brian and a potential client. En route we stop several times as Tim always bumps into various people he knows being a Liverpool lad born and bread. We order food; I always go for the chunky chips served stacked like a game of Jenga, a personal favourite.
Lunch brings news that we have secured a new job in Preston to provide the structural planning and work for a £25m mixed use development scheme. We not only operate in Liverpool but in the wider North West.
2.15pm: Back at the office and straight over to a site visit at Mann Island. The archaeologists have found the original river wall for the River Mersey. I meet with the contractor and assess the historic findings. It is our job to come up with a design solution around the discovery of the second oldest dock wall and any other underground obstacles.
4pm: Back at the office, had a quick call from Linda, my son Daniel, nine, has just got an audition to play a part in Hollyoaks, what a great bit of news for the end of the day.
Further to my site visit, I arrange for a surveyor to visit Mann Island and measure the new spectacular findings. This is a necessity for us to further structural design.
5pm: I finally get to my least favourite action: time sheets. I run the system that controls project fees and project costs; it isn’t just my time sheet I have to fill in.
5.30pm: Having finished the day by writing my “to do” list for tomorrow, I pack my lap-top up. I have a working progress report to do for a client meeting tomorrow. I find these best done at home. Can’t wait to see the kids, I’ll hopefully read Becky a bedtime story before a half an hour ride on my bike to de-stress from a busy day.
