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01 / ABOUT The team behind the table

We've sat on both sides of the table.

We help contractors manage technical risk, clarify scope, and improve delivery certainty.

Twenty years writing the rejection letters. Forty years getting them overturned. That's how Ashton Blake submissions become bulletproof.

Embed.

Alongside your team, not above it.

On-site. In the office. At the table. We plug into your existing structure and make it stronger — not a parallel reporting line that creates friction.

Protect.

Commercial, programme & site exposure.

From day one to final account. Variations captured. Notices served. Records logged. EOTs substantiated. CDM evidenced. Every gap closed before it costs you.

Deliver.

On site, on paper, on programme.

From pre-construction through handover. We don't just manage paperwork — we lead the install, the lifting, the multi-trade coordination. End-to-end ownership.

Built by the people who used to reject the claims.

Ashton Blake exists to close the gap between doing great work and getting paid for it. That gap, on every complex UK construction project, is worth somewhere between £200,000 and £2 million — and it's almost always taken by the side that documents better.

Our partners spent decades on the main contractor side. We've drafted the back-to-back clauses. We've issued the pay-less notices. We've rejected the variation claims that arrived without contemporaneous records. We know the rejection patterns because we wrote them.

We started Ashton Blake because we kept seeing capable subcontractors lose hundreds of thousands of pounds to gaps that nothing more than a notice, a record, or a contractual challenge would have fixed. — On founding the firm

Today we work exclusively for the specialist subcontractor — façade, steel and roofing. Same chartered credentials (RICS, MCIOB), same technical depth, but pointed in the other direction. We protect the side of the table we used to negotiate against.

That asymmetry is the firm's biggest asset. When we draft an EWN, the main contractor's QS reads it and sees something they can't easily reject — because it's drafted the way they'd want to write it themselves.

Three people. Sixty years. One model.

Each partner runs a discipline. Together they cover the full lifecycle — contract to final account, tender to handover, RAMS to retention release. RICS, MCIOB and APM qualified across the board.

PARTNER · 01

Commercial Director

Chartered Quantity Surveyor · MRICS
BSc MSc MRICS 20+ yrs

Twenty years in UK construction commercial. Twelve years on-site as Project Manager, then thirteen years as QS, Commercial Manager and Commercial Director across major UK façade and specialist subcontract projects. Has prepared and defended final accounts on packages from £2M to £40M.

Discipline
Contract · Variations · Final Account · Adjudication
PARTNER · 02

Project Director

Chartered Project Manager · MCIOB · MAPM
BArch MSc MCIOB MAPM 15+ yrs

Fifteen years managing complex projects from pre-construction through handover. Architect by training, project manager by trade. Expert in programme-driven delivery and multi-trade coordination on constrained urban sites. Has delivered Central London packages with ≤ 5% snagging at handover.

Discipline
Site Leadership · Programme · Delivery · Quality
PARTNER · 03

Construction Director

Chartered Senior Construction Manager · MCIOB · AP
MSc MCIOB AP 25+ yrs

Twenty-five years in high-risk façade installations. Appointed Person for lifting operations under LOLER and BS 7121. CDM 2015 leadership across multi-package projects. Specialist in interface management between structure, façade and follow-on trades on live-environment works.

Discipline
Installations · CDM · Lifting · Logistics
60+ years combined · both sides of the table
3
Chartered partners
60+
Combined years
100%
Senior-only delivery

Chartered.
Audited. Insurable.

The credentials matter to your insurers, your funders, your main contractor — and our adjudicators. Every partner is chartered with their professional body. Every system we deploy is auditable. Every recommendation carries professional indemnity weight.

MRICS · Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Chartered Quantity Surveyor — recognised authority on commercial & contractual matters.
MCIOB · Chartered Institute of Building
Chartered Construction Manager — UK industry benchmark for site delivery and management.
MAPM · Association for Project Management
Chartered project management body — programme, risk and delivery-control discipline.
AP · LOLER & BS 7121
Appointed Person for lifting operations — statutory duty holder for cranage and lifts.
CDM · 2015 Regulations
Principal Designer / Principal Contractor advisor — full statutory duty leadership.
SCL · Society of Construction Law
Delay & Disruption Protocol — the methodology UK courts and adjudicators apply.
PI · Professional Indemnity
Insured to the level expected for commercial advisory on £20M+ packages.

Embedded, not overhead.

The wrong way to engage a consultancy is to bolt one on at month three with no records, no relationship and no authority. We do the opposite — we plug into your daily site rhythm from day one, learn your systems, then make them stronger.

The bolted-on consultancy

Overhead, not value.

  • Arrives at month three, when the problem is already six weeks old
  • No relationship with the site team — issues advice nobody actions
  • Sends an invoice; sends another opinion; sends another invoice
  • Drafts a memo. The memo gets filed. The variation still gets rejected.
  • Leaves when the contract ends. Takes the knowledge with them.
The Ashton Blake model

Embedded, evidenced, owned.

  • Plugs into your team from day one — site cabin, weekly meetings, document control
  • Daily site report by 18:00. Photos tagged to location. Records logged contemporaneously.
  • Notices drafted within 24 hours of the trigger event. EWN tracker live.
  • Monthly commercial dashboard direct to your board — RAG-rated, defensible.
  • Templates, systems and trained team stay with you when we leave.
Free · 15 minutes · No obligation · Senior partner only

Bring us in before the next project starts.

Contract and programme review with a chartered partner. We tell you what we'd do differently — whether you hire us or not. The best time to protect your money was before the contract was signed. The second best time is now.

Response timeSame working day
Partner levelRICS / MCIOB / APM
ConfidentialityNDA on request
CoverageUK · Europe · MENA · CIS