Interview with Frank Henshaw part 1

Frank recalls that in Runcorn, his job was to create systems establishing a Runcorn way of doing things, achieving a consistent approach to contract work. He comments on his ‘terrific working relationship’ with Fred Roche in Runcorn; Fred’s strengths were team building and achieving. Other future MKDC staff at Runcorn were: Don Ritson, Derek Codling, Neil Higson, Brian Salter, Bob Clark and Mike Clegg. Derek Walker was commissioned to do a small housing scheme in Runcorn; Frank says: ‘he and I were very different personalities but we …had a mutual respect for each other’.

When Fred Roche moved to MKDC as General Manager, he offered Frank a job too, but Frank remained in Sheffield for 18 months: but, disillusioned by this experience, he accepted an MK post on 1 September 1971, describing it as: ‘exciting, fresh, chaotic’. Some architects had been appointed by Derek Walker, some were ‘pre-Derek’; Frank recalls tension between the two groups. Frank’s aim was to establish: ‘an MK way of administering and interpreting contracts’. He describes the process, pointing out many difficulties, including availability of few contractors and lack of a skilled labour force in the area. Trade union activities were also at their peak. In 1971, Galley Hill housing and an industrial scheme at Water Eaton were under way. Aiming to ensure that all contracts were run using the same process, Frank initially signed off all project cost plans. He talks of the builders they used: Mowlem’s(an in-situ concrete system) and Marriott’s, and recalls liaison meetings with builders and trade unions. Frank describes the government’s housing cost yardstick, which set cost limits for public rental house building; he remembers that early tenders for schemes like Tinkers Bridge could exceed the cost yardstick by 40 or 50 per cent and MKDC staff had to resolve that.