Tributes paid to former Bovis director

Alan Mack, the former Bovis director behind construction of the Scottish parliament building in Edinburgh, has died.

Mack, who was in his 60s, held a number of senior roles across construction, including operations director at Bovis Scotland, during which time he was in charge of building the Holyrood parliament.

In recent years Mack worked closely with industry training centre Constructionarium, which published a statement confirming his death.

The statement said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend and colleague Alan Mack. We were privileged to have worked with him and he will be fondly remembered for his work within the construction industry and support to Constructionarium, but more importantly for being a charismatic and fair man who saw through work to the more important matters in life.

“He was very popular with the students, who benefited from his wealth of experience and mentoring during our Constructionarium weeks. He will be sadly missed by all who had the pleasure of meeting him. Our thoughts and condolences go out to his family in these difficult times.”

The Holyrood project hit the headlines after construction costs rose tenfold to £430m. Mack was one of the key witnesses at the Fraser inquiry in Scotland into the construction process, during which it was revealed the parliament had undergone more than 15,000 design changes.

As well as revealing the extent of the design changes, Mack memorably criticised MSPs who had monitored progress, saying that when he tried to explain the work to them they talked down to him as if they “thought we were Bob the Builder”.

In an earlier interview with Building in 2003 while construction on the parliament was ongoing, Mack said the building - designed by Spanish architect Enric Mirrales - was “not constructing a building” and was instead “constructing a sculpture that will be used as a building”.

Among his other roles, Mack spent time as a project director in Carillion’s Middle East business.

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