A printed Gantt chart programme partially unrolled on a drafting desk, marked up with red pen circles and arrows showing slippage, with a coffee ring on one corner.

Cranebank · Hall B Storey 2 · 350 days slip across 7 events · auditable

The forensic problem

Delay claims fail because the evidence didn't exist when the delay did.

UK construction loses billions in extension-of-time claims every year — not because the events didn't happen, but because the contemporaneous record didn't capture the cause, the clause, the cost and the concurrency at the moment the slip occurred. Six months later, the delay analyst is reconstructing the project from emails and CCTV.

The contract administrator rejects half of it on the grounds that "the contractor cannot demonstrate causation". This is true — but it is a documentation problem, not a fact problem.

Delay event register · 7 entries · 350 days total

Captured as it happened — not reconstructed afterwards.

DEL-01 Client variation

MV transformer rooms added — Hall B

Phoenix Digital instructed addition of two MV transformer rooms post-baseline. WBS B.2.MEP-04 impacted. Compensation event filed under NEC4 60.1(1). 84 days net impact after concurrency analysis.

+84d net impact £412k forecast
DEL-02 DNO connection

Nimbus DNO milestone shift

DNO Nimbus revised grid connection date by 12 weeks. Cascade impact on power-up, commissioning and witness-test sequence. EWN issued under NEC4 16.1; programme update logged.

+62d net impact £890k forecast
DEL-03 Design change

Fire compartmentation re-design

Building Safety Regulator gateway 2 feedback required revised fire compartment strategy across pods 13–24. Lead architect issued IFC revision; sub-contractor re-mobilisation required.

+45d net impact £268k forecast
DEL-04 Weather (exceptional)

Storm Eira — three weeks of crane stand-down

Sustained wind speeds above safe-lifting threshold for 21 consecutive working days. Independently substantiated against Met Office data. Relief event under contract clause 2.29.

+21d net impact EOT only · no money
DEL-05 Sub-contractor delay

Frostline package re-tender

Cooling package sub Frostline went into administration mid-package. Re-tender and re-mobilisation. Concurrent with DEL-02; net independent impact 38 days.

+38d net impact £610k forecast
DEL-06 Statutory consent

Building Safety Regulator gateway 2 hold

BSR gateway 2 approval period extended beyond statutory expectation; works at risk if commenced. Compliance lead recommended pause; pause logged contemporaneously.

+58d net impact £375k forecast
DEL-07 Information late

IFC drawings late — pod 31–36 grouping

Pod-fit-out drawing release lagged the contractual information release schedule by 9 weeks. Lead architect attribution; partial concurrency with DEL-03 reviewed and netted.

+42d net impact £195k forecast
Total · net

350 days

Net impact across 7 substantiated delay events. Concurrency reviewed event-by-event. Each entry has its cause, clause, cost and signed competent-person sign-off — auditable end to end.

£2.75m forecast cost · 100% contemporaneous · 0 reconstructions

Why it works

Every entry has the four facts. Every entry is signed by a person.

Cause
The single root cause, taxonomy-bound. Configurable per project under Principle 1.
Clause
The contract clause that governs the event — drawn from the Contract-Aware Engine vault. Auto-suggested, human-confirmed.
Cost
The forecast cost impact — decomposed into prelims, sub-package and head-office overhead. Editable; recorded version-by-version.
Concurrency
Other delay events live at the same time. The system surfaces overlap; the analyst signs off the net impact.
Sign-off
Competent-person tile. Locked declaration. Records role, signatory, time, IP, document hash.
"If the entry was made when the event happened, the dispute starts and ends with the entry. If the entry was made six months after, the dispute starts." Phase 2 PM decision-ledger · M-PD-12