About the Project

Abbey Primary School, Port Talbot

Construction of 500-pupil school, completed in 78 weeks.

In his first project management post in a 21-year career that began with working as a gateman, Rhys Lewis showed leadership and a pragmatic approach to dealing with issues and overcoming them.

The key to his success lay in turning the challenge of the steeply sloping ground into a value opportunity. As the school, which amalgamated its split-site predecessor in one location, had a 24-metre fall from rear boundary to school entrance, Rhys reduced the cut and fill operation to 30,000 cubic metres and kept all material on site by introducing a retaining wall structure through the middle of the school. He created a split-level build, with a two-storey block at the front and a single-storey block at the rear.

His rationalisation of the extensive retaining structures (over 600 metres of reinforced concrete, king post walling and gabions) formed part of a value engineering drive that made the project viable in the first place.

Rhys was also instrumental in driving forward the extensive service diversions required – six service lines had to be lowered and rerouted to form the school entrance. And his ground generalship extended to a water management strategy that involved three pumps working at any one time to deal with an enormous amount of ground and surface water run-off while two lagoons and silt treatment ponds were constructed.