What does the Project Sponsor do? A case study using the A303 Stonehenge Tunnel

The SWWE Regional Network were very pleased to welcome Sophie Holland, Sponsor, North West, National Highways, to BAWA on Wednesday 2 April, to discuss her role as a project sponsor, and what she does, using the recently cancelled Stonehenge A303 tunnel project as a case study.

Sophie introduced herself and her career path which led to the sponsor role in National Highways. This has included project delivery, early scheme development, active travel and integration, R&D PMO and process improvement and then formal sponsorship roles. She emphasised that their can be many routes into sponsorship as a career.

So, what is sponsorship? The role is evolving, even in National Highways. APM has several definitions, but for her, it is about being motivated to champion a project, focussing on delivery of benefits and value, ensuring the project remains aligned with the business plan objectives, and being prepared to put your hand up it the project is not going correctly.

Organisations like National Highways have embraced the sponsorship role to drive project performance. Sophie shared some organisational definitions of sponsorship.

Her view is that project management is about delivering the thing right, whereas sponsorship is about delivering the right thing. It is about constantly checking that the original business plan objectives are valid and can still be delivered, as well as promoting continuous learning and sharing of lessons.

So, what does the sponsor do? Sophie shared many examples of what she does, including writing the business case, chairing project committees, supporting the preparation for assurance reviews, briefing the SRO (Senior Responsible Officer), consulting with and briefing strategic stakeholders.

The A303 Stonehenge project aims were to remove a major bottleneck on the A303, provide relief for local villages, and aid economic growth across the South West. It included 8 miles of dual carriage way, 2 miles of tunnel, green bridges and public rights of way.

There have been several projects in the past, but this project started in 2014, and due to its nature and complexity, dealt with uncertainty throughout, and there were many differing views from stakeholders to consider. The Development Consent Order, (DCO), was subject to several legal challenges before the project was ultimately cancelled due to affordability.

Uncertainly creates many challenges for a project such as continuity of work, and how do you staff for this, additional baselining and rework, which adds to costs, staff turnover which can result in lost knowledge and less effective team performance. How do you maintain team morale? Maintaining stakeholder relationships and communication is difficult if you don’t know what is happening.

How did the sponsors respond to these challenges, and how did they help? They owned the governance challenges and provided direction. They worked with stakeholders, including Government to build trust and relationships. Championed proportionality, limiting rework to what was sensible to do. Kept focus on the stated outcomes and benefits. It was a balance of advocacy and challenge, overall trying to be a positive influence and support the team.

Within National Highways, the sponsor role has had a positive influence on project delivery generally. There is additional focus on the business case and wider benefits, and ownership of this throughout. Benefits realisation is more important, both monetarised and non-monetarised – were they actually delivered as expected. Handover to operations is better managed.

Sophie then turned to sponsorship as a career. It is a growing area in industry, and links to many backgrounds, and in turn can be a stepping stone to other career opportunities. It draws on skills from project management, benefits management, stakeholder management and also investment planning. It also provides a sound route to gaining APM’s ChPP standard.

We rounded off the event with a lively and interactive Q&A session. It was clear that several organisations had different sponsorship models, but that there were many common themes in the intent and approach used.

Unfortunately, the slides cannot be available due to the sensitivity of the project.

Following the main event, SWWE was very pleased to announce the winners and finalists of the Regional Emerging Project Professional and Student of the Year Competition for 2025.

Certificates were presented to the SWWE Region Emerging Project Professional of the year Finalists James Down, Rohit Malhotra, Mollie Nevill and Marielle Salom.

The well-deserved winner of the SWWE Region Emerging Project Professional of the year was Jasreet Kaur, who received a trophy and certificate, and will be entered into the National Award for Emerging Project Professional of the Year.

The winner of the SWWE Region Student of the Year was Alexander King, who received a trophy and certificate and will also be entered into the National Award for Student of the Year.

It was a great celebration of new Project talent across the SWWE Region. And good luck to Jasreet and Alexander in the National competition.

Martin Gosden
SWWE Events Co-ordinator