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Eric Roberts

Eric Roberts

Director at Black Cat Building Consultancy in Manchester; chartered building surveyor (FRICS, ACIArb) with 40+ years' experience.

Oct 8, 2026

22:12
Yeah.
22:12
Valuation, there could be two correct answers, which I thought was a load of rubbish.
22:17
But a size of a brick was the size of a brick, so I thought, "Oh, I'll do building surveying then." So I did building surveying in the last year, and then went on from there to join the PSA, which was the Property Service Agency at the time, and did all the government work.
22:30
Uh, and then I spent, uh, two and a half years at, uh, i- in the PSA working on MOD stuff, uh, DHS, stuff like that.
22:39
Uh, and so th- that was a really good, um, good grounding because, uh, they put you into different departments.
22:45
They put you into drainage for a couple of weeks.
22:50
Yeah.
22:51
So, so, uh, and then when I finished there, uh, I was offered a job, uh, with what was called Burner Thornton Partners.
0:39
Okay, let's go.
0:41
I think I've been to court twice on dilapidations, with the first one being Elite Investments and TI Bainbridge, which was some case in the 80s.
0:49
But the one I remember most was what was called the Texas Home Care and Balfour Beatty, which is the way they named the cases.
0:57
And I was appearing in the High Court in London.
1:00
And so I'd given my evidence and I was there for two days so I had to go and buy a shirt because I thought I was going to be there for the first day and not the second.
1:07
So I was coming out the second day and as I'm coming out, all the press people around the entrance and they all started taking photographs.
1:16
I'm looking around, all I've done is just give evidence of the dilapidations and then as I'm walking out, I look behind me and I see Teddy Venables and Alan Sugar coming out behind me.
6:06
They go to the same bar, yeah? Yeah.
15:47
rather than
15:49
getting the job right in the first place.
15:50
Yeah, well, that's because we didn't do the job right in the first place.
15:53
That's why the legislation has been brought in, isn't it? When you say we.
15:56
When I say we, we the trade.
16:00
No, I don't

29 MINS LATER

45:30
But you've got
45:31
to be man enough to understand it and take it on board.
15:58
rather than getting
16:00
the job right in the first place.
16:01
Yeah, well, that's because we didn't do the job right in the first place.
16:03
That's why the legislation's been brought in, isn't it? When you say we...
16:07
When I say we, we the trade.
16:11
No, I don't agree.
16:12
No, you look at Grenfell.

30 MINS LATER

45:55
But you've got

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