Contract Administration in Hemel Hempstead

Documented building context

The National Heritage List entry for 99 High Street records an eighteenth-century red-brick front with a parapet and an earlier timber-framed back wing. That single building illustrates why the outward date of a frontage cannot safely be applied to an entire Old Town property. It is not evidence that other High Street houses contain the same frame.

Hertfordshire's Urban Transport Plan describes Boxmoor as a predominantly Victorian development associated with the railway. It separately identifies Adeyfield and Bennetts End as original New Town districts, and Chaulden, Cupid Green and Gadebridge as later 1960s developments. These historical neighbourhood descriptions are useful for orientation, but are too broad to date an individual extension or identify a house's structural system.

The county plan records residential redevelopment of the former Dickinsons factory site beside the canal at Apsley. That is historical development context, not a statement that every Apsley flat is a factory conversion or that its shared structure has been inspected. Establish the exact building and whether the flat is in retained fabric or a later building before settling the brief.

The transport plan places the Old Town around High Street and Queensway and distinguishes it from Marlowes and the later neighbourhoods. Its older development descriptions should not be used as current planning advice. Check the address against Dacorum's current planning information and the National Heritage List where relevant, rather than applying one town-centre label to the whole of Hemel Hempstead.

Hemel Hempstead tender and contract decisions

An Old Town tender should distinguish the frontage from any earlier rear wing where the actual building evidence supports that distinction. The listing example at 99 High Street is not a construction specification for neighbouring houses. Define investigations at the relevant junction and ask the designer to identify the repair, temporary protection and making-good requirements.

For a Boxmoor or New Town property, use its own construction and alteration records. An Apsley flat should be identified as retained fabric or later construction before common-element work is priced. Confirm the employer's scope and management access, with occupied routes and service interfaces made clear to tenderers.

Keep each JCT instruction connected to the revised detail, measured work and supporting programme evidence. At handover, reconcile tests, drawings and outstanding items with the actual house or block package. Historical neighbourhood descriptions and an old transport plan cannot establish today's permissions or whether a particular building-contract obligation has been completed.

HCS cannot act as independent contract administrator where HCS is the contractor.

Contract scope

• Historic England: 99 High Street, list entry 1078094 — Official list entry, Details: eighteenth-century red-brick front, parapet and earlier timber-framed back wing
• Hemel Hempstead Urban Transport Plan, paragraphs 3.11–3.14 and 3.18, printed pages 17–18 (PDF 24–25); historical neighbourhood descriptions only — Hemel Hempstead Urban Transport Plan, paragraphs 3.11–3.14 and 3.18, printed pages 17–18 (PDF 24–25); historical neighbourhood descriptions only

• Major works
• Tendering
• Clerk of Works
• Employer's Agent
• Insurance reinstatement

• Hemel Hempstead area guide
• St Albans
• Watford
• Harpenden
• Rickmansworth
• Bushey

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