VOLOCO LLP

Name: VOLOCO LLP
Address: Windhager Building, Tormarton Road, Marshfield, Bristol, SN148SR, GB
Telephone: +441454324111

Contractor and developer support services for the construction industry This approach will add value and support you with your construction project.

VOLOCO LLP provide flexible and responsive commercial consulting, quantity surveying and project management solutions to the constructing industry. We recognise the cyclical nature of the construction industry and the need for those involved to be responsive to the changing demands on its resources. With this in mind, we provide bespoke Quantity Surveying, Commercial Support, Cost Management, Cont

ractual and Project Management Services tailored to meet the needs of our construction industry clients. We provide support throughout all stages of the construction process from pre-development to post-contract, across all sectors including Commercial, Residential, Healthcare, Education, Leisure and Retail to both Main Contractors and Sub-Contractors. Our core values of professionalism and integrity run throughout each personally managed commission. We aim to provide a market leading bespoke service with dedication to detail combined with decisive action.

11/09/2026

It didn't arrive as a pest, it arrived as a prize. A German doctor, von Siebold, sold it from his Dutch nursery as a fashionable ornamental, and in 1850 a shipment reached Kew. The Victorians loved the bamboo-like stems and fast cover, and planted it across gardens and estates. That's the origin of nearly every plant we now fight.

It's a single female clone that can't set seed, so it doesn't spread by seed, it spreads by soil. A fragment of root under a gram, carried in a bucket of muck or a load of spoil, is enough to start a fresh infestation.

You'll often hear the Victorians planted it to reinforce railway embankments. That may be true in part, but the actual evidence it was planted for that is thin. The likelier reason it hugs the railways is boring: railways shift huge volumes of soil, and every load risks carrying a fragment.

And that's exactly why it's a construction problem, not a gardening one. Moving soil is what spreads it, and moving soil is a large part of construction. So it can arrive on site in imported fill or disturbed ground, and it gets found later. By then it's a delay, a remediation cost, and a dispute over who knew what and when.

Know what's on your site and what you signed before you start.

09/09/2026

Solar panels on car parks. A missed opportunity, or the right decision?

The Government has decided not to take forward proposals to mandate solar canopies on new outdoor car parks.

Interestingly, this doesn't mean the Government has abandoned solar car parks. Ministers say they still want to see more of them, but concluded that a single mandatory approach wasn't the right solution.

Cost and viability were part of the consideration, with concerns that some businesses may not recover the installation costs. There is also the potential for forthcoming building standards to deliver additional solar generation without a separate car park requirement.

So is this a missed opportunity, or a sensible move away from a blanket requirement?

🔗https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/government-drops-plans-for-solar-on-new-car-parks/

07/09/2026

Infrastructure projects bring plenty of commercial complexity, particularly for specialist subcontractors.

We supported Littlewood Fencing on the Taff’s Well Crossing / Station project in Cardiff, providing quantity surveying and commercial support across the works.

The work might not always be the most visible part of a project, but getting the commercial detail right is what helps protect the value of the work being delivered.

Full case study 👇

🔗https://www.voloco.co.uk/case-studies/taffs-well-crossing-station/

04/09/2026

The Construction Act is the reason you get paid in stages, not one lump sum at the end.

Formally, the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, Section 109 gives contractors and subcontractors the right to interim payments as work progresses. Section 112 gives the right to suspend performance if you're not paid by the final date and no valid pay less notice has been served, provided you give seven days' notice first.

Few industries have payment protection written into statute like this. It's rarely used. Most subcontractors absorb the loss rather than exercise the right.

Have you ever suspended performance under Section 112, or worked with someone who has?

02/09/2026

Some of the most important construction projects are the ones most people will never see.

A new 2.2km high-voltage cable tunnel beneath the River Thames has now reached its halfway point, replacing infrastructure that has been in service since the late 1960s and is approaching the end of its working life.

It's not a new stadium, office tower or housing development that will dominate the skyline. In fact, once complete, most people probably won't give it a second thought.

But that's the point.

Infrastructure like this keeps the country moving. It might not make the front pages very often, but investment in projects that strengthen the electricity network and support future demand will make a difference long after the construction teams have left site.

With more than 1.1km of tunnelling now complete, it's also a reminder that there is still significant investment going into major public infrastructure projects.

Good to see progress being made on something that may not be particularly visible, but will certainly be important.

🔗https://www.geplus.co.uk/news/power-tunnel-below-the-thames-reaches-halfway-point-26-08-2026/

31/08/2026

A £13m, 120-bed student accommodation scheme delivered to BREEAM Excellent - where VOLOCO provided Design Management for RED Construction South West, coordinating the design team and CDP sub-contractors from CDE setup through to handover.

With photovoltaics, electric heating, a living wall, green roofs and biodiversity features built in, Hollis reflects where construction as a whole is heading. Sustainability is no longer a bolt-on but a core design requirement, and getting it right depends on tight coordination from day one.

A pleasure working with the RED team on another successful delivery

Full case study 👇

🔗 https://www.voloco.co.uk/case-studies/hollis-building/

28/08/2026

The email says the client has decided to proceed with another contractor, thanks for your interest. Nobody rings back to ask why.

Partly pride. Mostly because by the time it arrives you're three tenders deep into the next lot, and going back over a dead one feels like picking at a scab.

So the estimating hours get written off and you move on, no wiser than you were before you priced it.

On a private job or a subcontract package, nobody has to tell you anything. Most won't. The only way you'll know is to ring the QS or the buyer within the week, whilst your submission is still fresh, and ask where you sat on price and whether anything in the bid put them off.

Then write it down. Client, job type, value, what they said. After a dozen bids you're looking at your own numbers instead of a hunch. Ten out of twelve say you were second on price and you've got a pricing problem.

Ten out of twelve say your programme or your qualifications caused a wobble, and that's a different problem with a different fix.

The calls are uncomfortable. Being told your submission looked thin, or that you were only on the list to make up the numbers, is not a nice hour. Still better than another year of guessing.

If you're bidding regularly and winning less than you should be, book a discovery call and we'll go through your last few tenders with you.

🔗https://book.voloco.co.uk/discovery-call

26/08/2026

80 per cent of the 18,000 pine trees on the Baku Expo City site are being kept. Zaha Hadid Architects have built the whole 198 hectare masterplan round them, and preserving that many mature trees is a good thing to aim at.

On site it turns into roughly 14,000 trees you can't touch. No-dig zones, crane positions you can't use, plant taking the long way round, and a groundworks package priced off a drawing that showed open ground.

By the time the tree protection reaches the trades, it's a clause pointing at an ecology report. It rarely turns up as a line in the bill.

Check what your contract or subcontract says about protected areas and site access restrictions. Then make sure your programme and your price reflect it.

🔗https://www.dezeen.com/2026/08/21/zha-baku-expo-city-masterplan/

25/08/2026

What's the simplest record you've seen make the biggest difference on a project?

21/08/2026

2.4%.

That's the average pre-tax profit the UK's 100 biggest contractors made last year. The biggest, best-resourced firms in the country keeping about £2.40 out of every £100 they turned over.

It's no easier further down the chain. In the latest FMB and CIOB State of Trade Survey, 51% of small and medium sized building companies reported lower profits than expected, or outright losses. And 20% said they fear for the viability of their business. That's one in five worried their business won’t survive despite the same companies reporting that workload was up 22%. They aren't short of work. They're short of what the work should have paid them.

At VOLOCO we've spent years watching good builders construct well and not generate the expected returns because commercial risk was not managed and opportunities were lost.

This is a commercial problem and a commercial problem has a commercial fix.

That's the whole reason VOLOCO exists.

Address

Windhager Building, Tormarton Road, Marshfield
Bristol
SN148SR

Telephone

+441454324111

Website

http://www.voloco.co.uk/

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