Last week was dominated by our Topping Out Ceremony, which took place on Thursday. Nearly 100 guests – a mixture of contractors, stakeholders and funders – gathered on a gorgeous sunny Autumn day at our building site to celebrate this important milestone with us. The formal ceremony – which involved myself and fellow VIPs placing an engraved tile on our roof – was followed by a drinks reception sponsored by Bovis Lend Lease. It was a great day with some great company.

Other good news – HM Customs & Excise has agreed to a reduction in the amount of VAT we will have to pay on certain aspects of the construction and fit out. It all helps the bottom line…

Elsewhere, final preparations are in place before announcing the tender for the TV studio fit out – due to the value and scale of the project, it will go out to tender across the European Union.

Another technical update this week. We’re making good progress on the telecommunications required in our new building at Greenwich Peninsula. To test our options, we’ll be undertaking a pilot in the next few weeks with a selection staff who will trial some new handsets… Elsewhere, we’re nearer to identifying our data cabling supplier and waiting to hear what insights staff and contractors have picked up from the recent IBC conference in Amsterdam vis a vis the new technologies that might be included in our HD TV studio.

And looking forward to next week’s Topping Out ceremony and celebrating this key milestone in our building programme with various construction partners and stakeholders. More on that to follow.

Another week focused on new building requirements…we’ve just finished the first draft of the catering specification that will be tendered soon, so that we can identify the company who will eventually provide all the food and drink (non alcoholic) on site. Also had further meetings with TSL on the TV studio fit-out. I’m confident we’ll have a final specification by the end of September so that the lengthy procurement process can then begin…

As the main structure of our new building in Greenwich is nearing completion, we have been focusing on the internal fit-out, particularly the new digital HDTV studio, which will be located on the ground floor of our new home. To help us with this, we paid a visit to TSL – the UK’s leading creator of integrated Broadcast Systems – who are drawing up final specifications. We are then out to tender for the supply of all the new equipment the high-end studio will house. I’m pleased we’re well on schedule with this phase of the internal fit-out.

Next, we will be scoping out the rapid prototyping studio and looking at possible layouts for our current equipment in the new space – and for some new kit as well.