Meet the team

John Plum MRICS MCIOB

Director

John is the driving force behind Blu, which he founded in 2004. A Chartered Building Surveyor with a comprehensive understanding of the profession. His key areas of expertise include change management, project design and development, contract administration, procurement and a full range of professional project management services.

John is a director who creates project environments that promote motivation and support to all team members. He is a result-focused surveyor and his awareness of the balance required between a client’s commercial priorities and quality requirements drives project solutions that are sustainable and can be delivered on time and within budget.

Throughout his career John has worked across a wide range of projects for both public and private sector clients, including Health, Education, Civic & Community, Residential and regularly acts in the role of Framework and Client Manager.

John has a particular interest in the Mental Healthcare Sector a friend of the Kings Fund he has undertaken a number of commissions evaluating client’s existing building stock, producing proposals and offering strategic advice for their future usage, maintenance and refurbishment.

A member of Design in Mental Health Network John regularly attends workshops and Mental Health Facilities forums on the latest trends and seeks to agree the best practice for Mental Health environments.

Jamie Lea MCIOB

Associate Director

Jamie is a ‘people person’ whose energy and enthusiasm for his work is infectious. He enjoys a challenge, thrives on pressure and has a great eye for design and how to use it effectively. He is a hands-on project manager, with a pragmatic attitude and a great ability to solve problems.

Proven track record on successfully delivering a range of complex projects concurrently for a number of client organisations up to individual project budgets of circa £5 million.

Jamie follows the design ethos that is promoted by Blu Building, which is an evidenced based approach. This approach builds strong working relationships with clients and design teams and creates successful design solutions for the projects on which we work. Jamie is also a PRINCE2 practitioner for project management.

He has an excellent understanding of traditional and modern procurement routes and their accompanying contract including NEC and more recently JCT Constructing Excellence.

Guy Harrison MCIOB

Senior Construction Manager

Guy is a qualified Construction Manager with over 15 years’ experience in managing and leading construction projects and teams through the full project lifecycle, from conception to completion. Guy takes responsibility and ownership of key project success factors including contract and commercial deliverables to ensure stability of project execution throughout this lifecycle.

Guy sets the project culture with regards to the extremely high standards expected around Health, Safety and Quality Assurance delivery throughout the project.

Guy provides a detailed and diverse level of experience, technical and Inter-personal skills developed through a number of new build, refurbishment and fit out projects within the Healthcare, Pharmaceutical and Education Sectors. These skills are implemented throughout project delivery to assist with potential problem solving, innovation and value engineering.

An open and versatile approach with a focus on collaborative working and effective communication, adaptable to suit different environments within a range of different clients has proven extremely effective in achieving successful project delivery for all stakeholders.

Edward Braisher FIIRSM, GradIOSH, ACIEH, ASMS, RSP

Health and Safety Manager

Ed has nearly 20 years’ experience within the Health and Safety industry, mainly in Public and Third Sector, and throughout his career has continued to develop his skills and experience throughout this time to supplement his qualifications in Health and Safety.

Ed is a dedicated and professional Health and Safety Manager who focusses on both policy development and service delivery. He is commercially aware with a record of identifying risk measures that are sensible and practicable and he is a strong believer that Health and Safety should not be seen as a barrier for work activities to take place.

Ed is a good team player and throughout his work career has proven to work with colleagues to deliver Health and Safety effectively and improve the working environment. Familiar with engaging with staff at all levels within an organisation and providing clear advice and guidance on Health and Safety matters to both senior management and employees as well as delivering hands on bespoke Health and Safety training.

Ed is experienced in participating within departmental and corporate management teams and reporting directly to senior management both in the form of reports and presentations around key Health and Safety issues.

Gordon Edwards BSc MRICS

Property/Estates Consultant

Gordon or ‘Eddie’ as he prefers to be known, is our teams estate’s lead for all property matters. He is a versatile, general practice Chartered Surveyor with extensive experience in managing complex property portfolios and delivering estate projects, for both public and private sector clients. Eddie is skilled at understanding client requirements to produce bespoke results and he contributes on wide-ranging projects issues, drawing on over 25 years of industry experience.

Involved in all types of estate portfolios across Private, Public, Health Care and Charity sectors, he has dealt with both leasehold and freehold acquisitions and disposals, from small to Nationwide portfolios involving small office space to multi-million-pound transactions, with particular expertise in the Healthcare, commercial and third sectors portfolios.

Eddie can advise and assist you with the management of your estate to maximise capacity and the return on your property assets; providing commercial insight if you are considering rationalising your estate portfolio. He can re-gear leases, resolve un regularised occupations, acquire new sites and dispose of surplus property, to ensure your property portfolio functions best serve your core business needs.

With a practical and pragmatic approach to business case preparation and Board presentations. Eddie was Estates lead in delivering NSPCC’s new property portfolio, implementing a 3-year National property rationalisation and consolidation strategy.

Blu will cut through the confusion and provide you with clear, concise commercial focused advice that aligns with your service delivery requirements.

Jerry Shoolbred

Construction Supervisor/Clerk of Works

Jerry is an experienced construction professional with over 40 years in the Construction industry. He has worked throughout his career with a number of clients, on a variety of schemes from school painting programmes to multi-million-pound University development projects.

He has worked as both staff and consultant on a wide variety of contracts; from Works Supervisor on NEC, to traditional JCT 80, and Contract and Project Management, with considerable experience of liaison with clients, end-users and contractors.

Jerry is very team-focused and uses his knowledge and experience to “raise the standards” on quality, learning from each project to raise awareness on the next scheme. He has achieved results on a number of award-winning projects over the years, and has extensive experience gathering and checking through technical documentation, Operations & Maintenance manuals and has helped create in-house design guides.

Jerry is a well-known and respected Senior member of the Institute of Clerks of Works and Construction Inspectorate, always encouraging the site team in “getting it right first time”. He has good interpersonal skills as required on site and has presented numerous lectures on behalf of his Institute on improving construction quality over the years.

Steve Glanville

NEC Supervisor (MEP)
Clerk of Works (M&E)

Steve has over 30 years’ experience in the Plumbing, Pipe-fitting and gas industry, is gas saferegistered and has recently applied to become a member of the ICWCI.

Since becoming a Clerk of Works, Steve has completed a £63million PRS scheme with retailunits, which resulted in the inspection and reporting on 139 apartments and witnessing lifesafety systems. Steve also completed a £45million school project, witnessing cause and effecttests, ventilation volumes and flow rates and electrical Zs tests in the latter stages of theproject. Steve has been appointed as NEC Supervisor on several projects. This role hasincluded the vesting of M&E materials on site for clients’ monthly audit reports.

Dave Currie MCIOB

Senior Project Manager

Dave is an experienced construction professional who really cares about the work he delivers and the outcomes generated. He has worked throughout his career for a number of different clients in different sectors which have all enhanced his CV. His core experience has been gained in Asset Management, Project / Performance Management, Contract Management, Job Estimating, Financial / Budget Management.

Dave specialises in project managing schemes from inception to completion, developing briefs with the client through liaison with staff and service users, acting as the contract administrator and ensuring the projects are handed over effectively and efficiently.

Dave has a good technical knowledge of construction and he is therefore comfortable in preparing building surveys / feasibility reports / backlog maintenance and advising on statutory compliance such as Fire and Access audits.

Dave presents good interpersonal skills and is an effective communicator at all levels which has been a major factor in his successful career to date.

James Naughton BSc(Hons) Dipl Arch RIBA

Strategic Estates Advisor

James or Jim to his friends is a genuine good guy who has strategic experience in abundance. A Chartered Architect with substantial knowledge in both the public and private sectors. Jim has a deep understanding of Healthcare from working within a range of consultancies including architects, engineers and project managers. Jim has further experience working directly for the Department of Health, Strategic Health Authorities, a PCT and a Mental Health Foundation Trust.

His experience within the DH/NHS has included writing policy documentation for healthcare facilities, providing support and guidance to NHS organisations required to deliver policy objectives, to working on the delivery of capital projects and running an operational estate.

Initially based within the DH Eastern Regional Office Jim acted as link between DH policy makers and the local Trusts with work ranging from audit and performance management to providing procurement advice on PFI and P21 projects.

Following a move to London Jim was promoted to Head of Estates for the five Strategic Health Authorities making up the London region. (Subsequently known as NHS London) Responsible for relaying policy and ensuring best practice against a range of indicators including strategic property usage, energy conservation, waste reduction, water conservation, lean thinking and improved procurement of both capital projects and facilities management services. As well as Head of Estates for NHS London Jim also undertook the role of Head of Capital Investment for a period of time reviewing business cases and reporting to the Board of NHS London.

Jim’s talent is guiding and supporting organisations in making procurement decisions for major capital projects, advising on the selection of appropriate consultants and the alternative procurement methods, including strategic property planning.

Joe Murphy MCIOB

NEC Supervisor and Clerk of Works

With 40 years plus experience in the construction industry and the past 20 years in construction management, Joe has gained vast knowledge and expertise in all areas of construction building projects including refurbishment and new build in steel, concrete, and various types of timber construction. This also extends to the various types building projects including mechanical and electrical installations. Joe worked on various Education projects under BSF and PSBP frameworks and is actively engaged as a member of our internal school framework, reviewing school design and construction standards in line with DFE design standards for the planning and design of school buildings.

Receiving various awards for his work including winner of Kier SHE awards, Finalist in Construction manager of the year 2013, Winner of best partnership with Harrow Building Control for Whitmore School and in 2017. Joe was both London Region winner and National winner of the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Non-residential Construction Professional of the year. A Member of the Chartered Institute of Building (MCIOB) in 2013. I have held the position of project and senior Project manager on various construction projects and held the position of contracts manager with overall responsibility for projects teams and delivery of various commercial, leisure, retail, health, and educational projects.

Joe now provides our site inspections and reports for quality of workmanship, records his observations on defects. His scope of duties includes reviewing architectural and engineers design drawings and specifications, project specific fire strategy and building regulation compliance and implementation during the build phase of projects to assist us and the client team with independent review and support.

Anna Shephard

Office Manager

Anna is amazing and her fantastic organisation and accounting skills keeps us all on track on a daily basis. Working in the background to assist in the smooth running of Blu Building Consultants and our NHS SBS Framework partners. Anna will liaise with clients in the initial procurement process and establish clear lines of communication with your finance teams. She has been working within the business since May 2018.

Justine Plum

Company Secretary and Communications Manager

Justine ensures compliance and good governance remain at the heart of what we do. Responsible for maintenance and improvement of all our systems and our continued clients’ satisfaction.

Justine joined in 2006, since then her exceptional people skills and organisational abilities have assisted in the delivery of high quality projects.