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How we work, from RIBA Stage 1 to handover

Bespoke Construction Group is engaged as main contractor from RIBA Stage 1 wherever possible, giving an honest view on cost and buildability while design intent can still be protected.

Bespoke’s involvement spans the full RIBA Plan of Work, Stage 0 through Stage 7, from the earliest relationship-building conversation through to delivery, handover and aftercare. Pre-construction, Stages 1 to 4, is led by Tom Rushton.

What a main contractor does

A main contractor holds a single contract with the client and takes responsibility for the whole build: managing subcontractors, procurement, cost reporting and programme, so the client has one point of accountability rather than several.

As main contractor, Bespoke Construction Group runs quantity surveying and procurement in-house rather than subcontracting that function out, which is what lets us give a credible view on cost from the earliest design stage rather than waiting until tender.

Burnham Market project

The Full RIBA Plan of Work

Where We Sit, Stage by Stage

01

Engagement, from RIBA Stage 1

We ask to be involved from RIBA Stage 1 wherever we can, not to take over the design, but to have an honest conversation early: is this buildable in the way it’s drawn, where is the cost actually going, and what could change now that would cost far more to change later. The earlier that conversation happens, the more of the design intent survives to completion.

  • Strategic Definition

02

Pre-construction (Stages 1–4): buildability, value engineering, cost certainty

This is where in-house quantity surveying does its real work. Provisional sums get tracked as live risks rather than settled numbers, each with a named owner and a point in the programme by which it needs to be firmed up. Value engineering happens here too, and it means finding a cheaper way to hit the same brief, not a worse one: a window supplier swapped rather than the spec, a structural approach changed rather than the structural size.

This stage is also where our pre-construction services extend to sourcing and programming for non-standard materials and details, traditional Norfolk flint, oak framing, listed-building constraints, that need far more lead time than a standard build.

  • Preparation & Briefing
  • Concept Design
  • Spatial Coordination
  • Technical Design

03

Delivery: reporting cadence, procurement

Once on site, cost reporting continues on the same cadence it started at pre-construction, not a document that only gets revisited when something’s gone wrong. Our tender process itself reflects this: well-substantiated tender returns from in-house QS, rather than a return assembled by a subcontracted quantity surveyor with less visibility into the actual build.

  • Manufacturing & Construction

04

Handover

A managed handover, with the same team remaining on hand for the relationships and repeat schemes that tend to follow a project delivered this way.

  • Handover
  • Use